Poets Billy Collins, Deborah Landau, David Lehman, Noah Michelson, Honor Moore, Molly Peacock, and Mark Strand help celebrate Valentine’s Day when they read from The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present at New York University on Thursday, February 14, at 7 p.m. Hosted by the NYU Creative Writing Program, this special event takes place at the NYU Silver Center, Hemmerdinger Hall, 100 Washington Square East (at Waverly Place).
Free and open to the public, it is co-sponsored with the NYU College of Arts and Science. For further information, call Danielle Veith at 212.998.8850; email danielle.veith@nyu.edu; or visit www.cwp.fas.nyu.edu.
The Best American Erotic Poems, edited by David Lehman (who is the distinguished editor of the celebrated Best American Poetry series), reveals the deep tradition of eroticism in American poetry. The poems are thoughtful, provocative, moving, and sometimes mirthful, and range across the varied landscapes of love and sex and desire. The collection starts with Francis Scott Key, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Hart Crane, encompasses Frank O’Hara, Anne Sexton, Billy Collins, and Sharon Olds, and concludes with younger poets such as Sarah Manguso, Ravi Shankar, and Brenda Shaughnessy.