MBL Falmouth Forum Concludes Season with Pulitzer Prize Winner Stephen Dunn, April 18

Contact: Susan Joslin 508-289-7281; sjoslin@mbl.edu

MBL, Woods Hole, MA—The MBL Falmouth Forum offers its final presentation of the season on Friday, April 18,^, 2014 with a poetry reading by Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn. The event will be held at 7:30 PM in the MBL’s Lillie Auditorium, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole. Sponsored by the MBL Associates, the Falmouth Forum series is free and open to the public. This MBL Falmouth Forum series is also supported by a generous donation from the Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod.

Stephen Dunn is a poet and educator. He has written fifteen collections of poetry. His 2001 collection, Different Hours, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Dunn has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Among his other awards are three National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundations Fellowship. A collection of essays about Dunn's poetry was published in 2013.

Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States, has said “The art lies in hiding the art, Horace tells us, and Stephen Dunn has proven himself a master of concealment. His honesty would not be so forceful were it not for his discrete formality; his poems would not be so strikingly naked were they not so carefully dressed.”

Dunn was born in Forest Hills, NY in 1939, and earned his B.A. in History from Hofstra University in 1962. He attended the New School 1964 to 1966 and received his Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Syracuse University in 1970. Dunn has worked as a professional basketball player, an advertising copywriter, and an editor, as well as a professor of creative writing.

Since 1974 he has taught at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, where he is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing. He has also been a Visiting Professor at The University of Washington, New York University, Columbia University, and The University of Michigan. He has read his poetry at The Library of Congress, and at many universities and colleges throughout the country.

In addition to his books, his work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, the New Republic, the New Yorker, The Georgia Review, and the American Poetry Review, to name just a few.

An optional buffet dinner will precede the lecture at 6:00 pm at the MBL’s Swope Center, 5 North Street, Woods Hole. Tickets are $30 (meal includes salad, pasta or potatoes, two entrees, wine, dessert, tax and gratuity) and must be purchased in advance at Eight Cousins Children’s Books, Main Street, Falmouth or at the MBL Communications Office (between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM only), 127 Water Street, Woods Hole. Dinner tickets are available until they sell out or until 5:00 pm on Tuesday, April 15. For more information, contact the MBL Communications Office at (508) 289-7423 or comm@mbl.edu.

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The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery and improving the human condition through research and education in biology, biomedicine, and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.

The MBL Associates are a group of individuals and businesses that support the scientific mission of the MBL through their gifts to the Annual Fund. The Associates sponsor educational and research programs for the MBL and raise funds for special projects. In addition, they operate the MBL Gift Shop, located on Water Street in Woods Hole, the profits from which support scientific fellowships.