Emily and Walt: America’s Two Greatest Poets
Code: LH11803
Dates: February 28 - April 4, 2022
Meets: 1:15 PM to 2:45 PM
Sessions: 6
Location: Creutzburg Center
Course Fee: $109.00
Sorry, we are no longer accepting registrations for this course. Please contact our office to find out if it will be rescheduled, or if alternative classes are available.
Both Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are strong contenders for the title “America’s greatest poet.” Both were prolific, writing thousands of poems, but profoundly different in the reception they received during their lifetimes. Whitman was internationally famous when he died; Dickinson’s work was known only to a few friends and family. Both were acute observers of nature and domestic life; however, their poetic voices are radically different. Dickinson wrote short poems using slant rhymes and compressed diction; Whitman was expansive, repetitive, and earthy. Yet both wrote passionately about their intimate desires and dreams.
J. Michael Lennon
J. Michael Lennon is the late Norman Mailer’s archivist, editor, authorized biographer. He has written/edited several books about him, including: Pieces and Pontifications (1982); Critical Essays on Norman (1986); Conversations with Norman Mailer (1988); Norman Mailer: Works and Days (2000); The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing (2003), and (with Mailer) On God: An Uncommon Conversation (2007). His biography, Norman Mailer: A Double Life (Simon and Schuster), appeared in 2013, and in 2014 he edited Selected Letters of Norman Mailer (Random House). He is currently editing Mailer’s works for the Library of America. He has also edited The James Jones Reader (1991), and was co-producer of the 1985 PBS documentary, James Jones: From Reveille to Taps. His work has appeared in Paris Review, New Yorker, New York, TLS, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Mailer Review, Hippocampus, Creative Nonfiction, NYRB, and Provincetown Arts, among others. The founding president of the Norman Mailer Society and chair of the editorial board of the Mailer Review, he also serves on the board of the James Jones Literary Society. Co-founder of the Wilkes University MA/MFA Program, he has taught in it since 2005. Prior to that he was the Provost at Wilkes from 1992-2000. From 1972-1992, he was a faculty member and administrator at the University of Illinois-Springfield. He received his B.A. from Stonehill College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island. His memoir, Mailer’s Last Days: New and Selected Literary Remembrances of a Life in Literature, will be published in 2022 by Etruscan Press. website: jmichaellennon.commichael.lennon@wilkes.edu
