Written Arts News
Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason Writes about Guy Davenport’s Letters for the New York Review of Books
Davenport’s texts are “a set of paths that lead us to places we haven’t been,” Mason writes.
Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason Writes about Guy Davenport’s Letters for the New York Review of Books
Wyatt Mason.
Mason, a critic and translator who has taught at Bard since 2010, writes about Davenport’s letters as well as the reissue of his book about inspiration in art, The Geography of the Imagination. Davenport’s texts are “a set of paths that lead us to places we haven’t been,” Mason writes. “A text is revealed to be a cave into which an intelligence has descended, by torchlight, to make marks that, once discovered, will require some work to see.”
Post Date: 10-28-2025
The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry ’99 Wins Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction
“Winning it was just an astonishing thing. I felt incredibly grateful.”
The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry ’99 Wins Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction
Jedediah Berry ’99. Photo by Tristan Morgan Chambers
The Naming Song, also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, is a fabulist novel that takes place after an apocalyptic event makes names disappear. The novel’s protagonist works for “the Names Committee” as a courier, delivering names to their proper places. “I came to love these characters and the strange journey that they’re on in the book,” Berry said. “Living with that for so long and knowing that it’s finally out of the world is kind of a strange experience. It’s like finally introducing people to these old friends.”
Post Date: 10-07-2025
Robert Kelly and Charlotte Mandell ’90 Write About Pierre Joris ’69 for the Poetry Foundation
“He was never jealous of anybody,” said Mandell. “He was always happy for other people's success.”
Robert Kelly and Charlotte Mandell ’90 Write About Pierre Joris ’69 for the Poetry Foundation
Pierre Joris ’69. Photo by Guy Jallay
“He was never jealous of anybody,” said Mandell of Joris. “He was always happy for other people's success.” Speaking about his translations of Paul Celan, Kelly remembers “Pierre somehow intuited a movement [toward] the kind of free line, the importance of the line, long or short. I think Pierre felt that movement in Celan’s later work [and] made it evident in his translations.”
The Literature Program at Bard challenges national, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries that have often dictated the terms by which we understand the meaning and value of the written word, and has a long-standing commitment to fostering the work of writers and thinkers who expand the parameters of public discourse.
Post Date: 08-20-2025
Upcoming Events
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11/07Friday4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Kline, College Room
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11/10Monday6:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
A Reading with Susan Fox Rogers
Monday, November 10, 2025
6:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
On Monday, November 10, at 6pm in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium, Reem-Kayden Center (RKC), writer Susan Fox Rogers will read from her essay, Guivi: What We Keep, What We Burn, winner of the 2025 Harvard Review Chapbook Prize, as part of the Written Arts Senior Colloquium series. This reading is free and open to the public.
Susan Fox Rogers is a birder, rock climber, kayaker, teacher, and writer who has authored and/or edited numerous works focused on the natural world and outdoor adventure. She was Visiting Associate Professor of Writing at Bard College from 2001 - 2022. Her books include Learning the Birds: A Midlife Adventure, When Birds Are Near: Literary Bird Tales, and My Reach: A Hudson River Memoir. She was selected by the National Science Foundation to participate in a US Antarctic Artists and Writers Program during the 2004 and 2005 austral summer. Her forthcoming chapbook, Guivi: What We Keep, What We Burn won the 2025 Harvard Review Chapbook Prize.
Contact: Megan Brien
E-mail: [email protected]
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11/14Friday4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Kline, College Room
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11/21Friday4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Kline, College Room
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11/28Friday4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Kline, College Room