Climate, Chaos and Keats with Nicole Tong, Today at 1

In honor of National Poetry Month, Dean Nicole Tong will discuss how poets are uniquely equipped to wonder in meaningful ways in eras of uncertainty. Her talk, titled “Climate, Chaos and Keats: Poetry in Eras of Uncertainty” will look at poems by Lucille Clifton, John Keats, Ada Limon, Patricia Smith and others that respond to what is just beyond human control. She will end with a discussion of Negative Capability, the Keatsian concept of embracing mystery and beauty in her own poems. The event will take place Tuesday, April 1 from 1-2 p.m. on the Annandale Campus (CA-302).

Dean Nicole Tong is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Fairfax County. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sundress Academy at Firefly Farms and George Mason University, where she received her MFA. In 2016, she served as a Writer-in-Residence at Pope-Leighey House, a Frank Lloyd Wright property in Alexandria. She was a recipient of the President’s Sabbatical from NOVA where she was professor of English. Her writing has appeared in American Book Review, CALYX, Cortland Review and Yalobusha Review, among others. Washington Writers’ Publishing House announced Nicole Tong’s debut collection– How to Prove a Theory– as the 2017 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize Winner, which is available at Politics and Prose, Scrawl Books and on Indiebound. Currently she is the dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Reynolds Community College.

If you need accommodations to attend this event, please contact Steve Lessner.

—Steve Lessner, Professor of English, Annandale Campus