Pulitzer Prize recipient to begin 2025-26 Visiting Writers Series

Northwest Missouri State University's 2025-26 Visiting Writers Series launches this month with a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet renowned for her unique lyrical voice.

Rae Armantrout will visit Northwest as the next guest of the series and present her work from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, in the Tower View Dining Room at the J.W. Jones Student Union. The event is free and open to the public.

"This is a unique opportunity to hear from one of our greatest living poets, whose groundbreaking work engages with cognitive theory, memory, metaphysics, pop culture, quantum physics and philosophy," Daniel Biegelson, the series director and a senior instructor of English, said. "Armantrout's poetry invites readers to navigate the tension between assertion and doubt, language and perception. Sometimes with wry humor, sometimes with a beautiful lyricism - always with precision - Rae explores how we construct the self and meaning even as she traces the ripple effects of language in the world. This is sure to be a thought-provoking and illuminating experience for anyone interested in literature, language, and, simply, critical inquiry."

Armantrout is one of the founding members of the West Coast group of Language poets and has published more than two dozen books of poetry and prose. Her 2009 poetry book, "Versed," earned the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and a 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award, and it was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award.

Her collections also include "Go Figure" (2024), "Finalists" (2022), "Conjure" (2020), "Itself" (2015), "Partly: New and Selected Poems" (2016), "Entanglements" (2017) and "Wobble" (2018), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Armantrout also published a short memoir, "True" (1998), and her "Collected Prose" was published in 2007 with Singing Horse Press.

Her work has been celebrated in numerous anthologies, including "The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry," and she has received prestigious fellowships and awards that include a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Armantrout resides in Everett, Washington, and is a professor emerita at the University of California, San Diego, where she taught for more than 20 years.

The Visiting Writers Series is designed to enrich Northwest's educational mission while promoting the values of community, civil discourse and self-expression. Northwest's Green Tower Press and the School of Language, Literature and Writing sponsor the series.

For more information about the Visiting Writers Series, contact Biegelson at [email protected] or 660.562.1266.