Sponsored by the Ulster Community College Foundation, The Poetry Forum is an annual
event which brings well known and award winning poets to SUNY Ulster for intimate
question and answer sessions, as well as a special evening reading of their poetry.
In 2007, the program was renamed the Ellen Robbins Poetry Forum to honor the memory of Ellen Robbins (1952-2006) who was on the faculty at SUNY Ulster
from 1994 until 2006, and Chair of the English department, 2002-2006.
April 11, 2013: Jorie Graham
April 28, 2011: Michael Dickman
April 22, 2010: Ted Kooser
April 30, 2009: Charles Simic
April 22, 2008: Naomi Shihab Nye
April 4, 2006: Yusef Komunyakaa
April 20, 2005: Jane Hirshfield
April 20, 2004: Michael McClure
April 23, 2003: Marge Piercy
April 25, 2002: Kenneth Koch
April 26, 2001: Robert Creeley
April 13, 2000: Robert Bly
April 14, 1999: Galway Kinnell
April 29, 1998: Donald Hall
April 17, 1997: Maxine Kumin
April 25, 1996: Carolyn Forché
April 28, 1994: Sharon Olds & Local Area Poets
U.S. Poet Laureate & Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Ted Kooser
Ted Kooser, two-time United States Poet Laureate (2004-2006) and Pulitzer Prize-winner
(2005), will be visiting campus as Ulster County Community College's Ellen Robbins Poetry Forum poet.
Thursday, April 22
10:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Vanderlyn Hall, Student Lounge
Ted Kooser
Two-time United States Poet Laureate (2004-2006) and Pulitzer Prize-winner (2005),
Ted Kooser is the highly esteemed poet from Nebraska. A professor of English at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kooser is the author of eleven full-length collections
of poetry. He has won numerous poetry prizes and two NEA fellowships in poetry. His
work is known for its clarity, precision and accessibility.
The poet will hold a morning session at 10:30 am in the Student Lounge to meet with
students and the public and talk about his work and answer questions. He will return
at 7:00 pm for a reading from his works and a reception, again in the Student Lounge.
The evening reading is open to the public with a suggested donation of $8.00.
Sponsored by the Student Government Organization and the Ulster Community College
Foundation, Inc.
Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet Charles Simic
Charles Simic, hailed as one of America’s finest poets and a winner of the Pulitzer
Prize for poetry, is scheduled to be reading his poems at Ulster County Community
College's Ellen Robbins Poetry Forum on April 30, 2009.
Poet, essayist and translator, Charles Simic is the author of over 60 books, winner
of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and recently recognized as the 15th United States
poet laureate. His poetry ranges from the surreal and metaphysical to the sardonic
and outrageous to the direct expressions of emotion and memory. Simic will lead a
morning discussion at 10:30 am in the Student Lounge in Vanderlyn Hall, and present
an evening reading of his poems at 7:00 pm. This event is sponsored by the Student
Government Organization and the Ulster Community College Foundation, Inc.
Charles Simic
Simic, born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1938, has emerged as an outstandingly original
American poet, drawing on his Eastern European background for many of his images and
themes. Simic’s poetry ranges from the surreal and metaphysical to sardonic and outrageous
to direct expressions of emotion and memory.
Simic has produced over 60 books of poetry, several of which have won major awards.
The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (1990) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; Classic Ballroom Dances (1980) won the Harriet Monroe Award; Walking the Black Cat (1996) was a National Book Award finalist; Jackstraws (1999) was a New York Times Notable Book; and Selected Poems: 1963-2003 (2004) received the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize. He has been
honored with a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (often called the “genius award”),
a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, among numerous other honors. In
1995 Simic was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2000 became
a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.