Renowned poet David Mason to visit AU for special reading on April 10
ASHLAND, Ohio – Ashland University will welcome award-winning poet David Mason, Ph.D., for a special reading on Friday, April 10, at 7 p.m., in the Student Center Auditorium of the Hawkins-Conard Student Center. It is free and open to the community.
Mason will also be on campus Saturday, April 11, for a meet-and-greet with students in Bixler Hall’s Humanities Collaboration Space (room 104) from 9-11 a.m.
At the poetry reading, Mason will share excerpts from his latest collection, “Cold Fire,” which consists of urgent and beautiful poems envisioning the dream life of art pitched against human conflict. With settings in the American West, Australia, India, Greece and Turkey, it is a book of light, love and powerful remembrance from the edge of the world.
“We are honored to have Dave Mason share his poetry and teaching with the campus community,” AU President Jon Parrish Peede states. “I have admired him as a poet and essayist for 30 years and agree with those who rank him as one of the finest narrative poets of the past half-century."
Mason is an American-Australian poet and the former poet laureate of Colorado. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including “The Buried Houses,” winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize; “The Country I Remember,” winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award; and “Ludlow,” his verse novel, which was named best poetry book of the year by the Contemporary Poetry Review and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
Mason wrote the libretti for composer Lori Laitman’s opera of “The Scarlet Letter,” which premiered at Opera Coloardo in 2016, and her oratorio, “Vedem.” His Grammy-nominated, one-act opera, “After Life,” with composer Tom Cipullo premiered in Seattle and San Francisco in 2015.
A former Fulbright Fellow to Greece, Mason also was a faculty member and is a professor emeritus of English at Colorado College.
Ashland University is a mid-size, private university conveniently located halfway between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Offering undergraduate, graduate and professional programs, AU puts the “Accent on the Individual” by combining strong applied academic programs with a distinguished faculty and staff who build nurturing relationships with their students.