Westminster English professor offers reading of new poetry

Westminster College Professor of English Dr. David Swerdlow will be featured on Lit Youngstown’s First Wednesday Reader Series at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 3, on Facebook Live and Zoom.

Swerdlow, who will be joined by fellow poet Darlene Montonaro for Wednesday’s series, will read from a new poetry manuscript titled Songs from an Infected World, which explores the difficulty of living inside a pandemic that puts two fundamental desires in tension: the desire for isolation—in order to be healthy and responsible—and the desire for intimacy—to touch and be touched, especially as an antidote to isolation. Several of the poems he will share will appear in an upcoming issue of The Cape Cod Poetry Review.

Swerdlow, who joined the Westminster College faculty in 1990, earned his undergraduate from the University of Maryland and his master’s and Ph.D. from Ohio University. He specializes in creative writing, modern and contemporary American literature and postcolonial literature.  His works appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, West Branch, The Denver Quarterly and others. He is the author of two books of poetry—Bodies on Earth (2010) and Small Holes in the Universe (2003)—and a novel, Television Man, which was released in 2019.

The reading can be viewed on Lit Youngstown’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LitYoungstown. To attend via Zoom or to read in the open mic, register here.

More Stories