Poet Jan Beatty To Give Reading At W&L Next Week

Poet Jan Beatty To Give Reading At W&L Next Week

BEATTY

Washington and Lee University will present a public reading with poet and memoirist Jan Beatty on Wednesday, March 6, at 6 p.m. in the Northen Auditorium inside Leyburn Library. The event is sponsored by the Glasgow Endowment.

“Jan Beatty’s poetry knocks the breath out of me,” said Lesley Wheeler, Henry S. Fox Professor of English and poetry editor of W&L’s Shenandoah literary magazine. “In book after prize-winning book, she refuses fear even as she confronts, with amazing clarity, the most powerful threats to our bodies and identities. I’ve wanted to bring her to campus for a long time, and I’m thrilled that it’s finally happening.”

Beatty’s eighth book, “Dragstripping,” explores the restricted roles and burdens placed on women by a culture unwilling to complicate the idea of gender and is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press later this year.

Her 2021 memoir “American Bastard” won the Red Hen Nonfiction Award, and other recent works include “The Body Wars” (2020), “Skydog” (2022), and “Jackknife: New and Selected Poems” (2017), which won the 2018 Paterson Prize.

Beatty is a Professor Emerita at Carlow University, where she was the director of the creating writing program, director of the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops and distinguished writer in residence of the university’s MFA program.