Due to Notre Dame's decision to move all courses online through at least April 13, the Anne Carson poetry reading has been cancelled. We will share more information on rescheduling at a later date.
This biannual literary event commemorates our esteemed colleague, the poet, scholar and teacher, Ernest Sandeen.Canadian author Anne Carson will begin reading at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, March 18, in the Eck Visitors Center Auditorium. A reception will follow the poetry reading. This event is free and open to the public, no tickets required.
Anne Carson is a poet, essayist, professor of Classics, and translator. Carson has gained both critical accolades and a wide readership over the course of her “unclassifiable” publishing career. In addition to her many highly-regarded translations of classical writers such as Sappho and Euripides, and her triptych rendering of An Oresteia (2009), she has published poems, essays, libretti, prose criticism, and verse novels that often cross genres. Carson’s recent collections include Nox (2010), Red Doc> (2013), and Float (2016). Her honors and awards are many, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the American Academy in Berlin. She has also received the Lannan Literary Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Griffin Poetry Prize.
A poet, scholar, and longtime professor at Notre Dame, Ernest Sandeen (1908-1997) published poems in such journals as Hudson Review, The New Yorker, Prairie Schooner, Sewanee Review, Iowa Review, and Poetry. His Collected Poems (1977) includes work from three earlier volumes: Antennas of Silence (1953), Children and Older Strangers (1962), and Like Any Road Anywhere (1976). A Later Day, Another Year was published in 1989 and Can These Bones Live? appeared in 1994. He retired from teaching at the University of Notre Dame in 1978. His Collected Poems 1953 - 1994 was published in 2001.
Sandeen set an exemplary standard for teaching at Notre Dame and his dedication is warmly remembered. He convened his poetry writing classes in the living room of his home, where he and his wife, Eileen, were the hosts of countless dinners that became legendary among students.
A native of Warren County, Ill., near Galesburg, professor Sandeen graduated from Knox College in 1931 and won a fellowship to Oxford University. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, writing his dissertation on Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The third annual Ernest Sandeen Memorial Reading is funded by the Ernest Sandeen Endowment and the Sturtevant Fund.