Poet Jeanne Murray Walker Speaks at Westmont

Poet and playwright Jeanne Murray Walker will read from her new collection of poems, “A Deed to the Light,” 3:30 p.m. Feb. 17 in Hieronymus Lounge, Westmont. Refreshments will be served. She also will speak in Westmont’s chapel 10:30 a.m. Feb. 18. Both events are free and open to the public.

Walker is a professor of English at the University of Delaware whose poems and plays are widely published and performed. “A Deed to the Light” (2004, University of Illinois Press) asks probing questions about the depth of grief, letting go and the possibility of faith. John Taylor of Writing in Poetry describes her poems as “splendid, subtly erudite, uplifting, and funny.”

After Walker earned a doctorate in English, she returned to writing poetry and published five volumes, including “Nailing Up the Home Sweet Home,” “Coming into History” and “Gaining Time.” Her poetry appears in periodicals such as “Image,” “Poetry,” “American Poetry Review,” “The Nation” and “The Christian Century.” She has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the Colladay Award, the Prairie Schooner/Strousse Award, and was named a Pew Fellow in Poetry in 1998.

In 1990, Walker wrote her first play, which won the Washington National Theater Competition. Subsequently, her plays have been performed in Boston, Chicago and London.

Walker serves on the editorial board of Shenandoah, and served as poetry editor of Christianity and Literature and teaches workshops and reads her work frequently throughout the United States and abroad. The mother of two children, Walker lives in Philadelphia.

For more information, please contact Westmont English Professor Paul Willis at (805) 565-7174. For directions to campus, visit the college Web site at www.westmont.edu.