English Professor to Read from His New Book at Bleasby Colloquium

Dr. David Swerdlow, Westminster College professor of English, will read poetry from his new book at the Bleasby Colloquium Thursday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m. in the Sebastian Mueller Theater of the McKelvey Campus Center. The program is free and open to the public.

Published this month, Bodies on Earth is described by its editor as "elegiac poems [that] lament what is lost, search for what persists, and celebrate what is, in the here and now. Swerdlow's graceful meditations invite the reader to share their quietness."

"Many of the poems were inspired by my father's death and dying, as well as our community's loss of [Westminster graduate] Sandy Edmiston," Swerdlow said.

Bodies on Earth is Swerdlow's second full-length collection of poems. His first book, Small Holes in the Universe, was published in 2003. His poetry has won numerous awards and appeared in some of the nation's most distinguished journals, including The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Denver Quarterly, and The Ohio Review.

Scrawl, Westminster's undergraduate literary and arts magazine, will host a reception following the reading. Copies of Bodies on Earth will be available for purchase and signing.

Swerdlow, who has been with Westminster since 1990, earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland and master's and Ph.D. from Ohio University.

This colloquium is part of the George Bleasby Colloquia, a series of literary events in honor of the late Dr. Bleasby, who chaired the Department of English at Westminster from 1954-75.

Contact Swerdlow at (724) 946-7345 or e-mail dswerdlw@westminster.edu for more information.

Dr. David Swerdlow