The Thirtieth Annual
WALLACE STEVENS BIRTHDAY BASH
Saturday, November 1, 2025, 2:00pm
Center for Contemporary Culture
Hartford Public Library
Featuring guest speaker—
PETER GIZZI
“The Poem is the Cry of its Occasion: An Appreciation of Wallace Stevens”
This presentation will be an informal talk and celebration of Wallace Stevens. Peter Gizzi will read a selection of Stevens’s poems and weave between the readings some personal anecdotes related to his relationship to Stevens in his life as an artist.
PETER GIZZI is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently Fierce Elegy (2023), winner of the Massachusetts Book Award; Now It’s Dark (2020); and Archeophonics (2016), a finalist for the National Book Award; all from Wesleyan U. Press. In the UK, Carcanet published Sky Burial: New and Selected Poems (2020) and in 2024 Penguin UK published an edition of Fierce Elegy (Winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize). His honors include fellowships from The Rex Foundation, The Howard Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and The Guggenheim Foundation. He has twice been the recipient of The Judith E. Wilson Visiting Fellowship in Poetry at the University of Cambridge. In 2018 Wesleyan published In the Air: Essays on the Poetry of Peter Gizzi. In 2024-5, he was a Senior Global Fellow in Poetry at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He teaches poetry and poetics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Program: This festive and illuminating event will begin with a reception of wine and hors d’oeuvres, followed by Peter Gizzi’s presentation, and will conclude with a book signing, birthday cake and champagne!
Suggested donation $10* per person to benefit…
Hartford Public Library
500 Main Street
Hartford, CT 06103
RSVP—
Jim Finnegan
jforjames@aol.com
860.508.2810
*Completely optional; no one turned away.
