The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing presents a reading by the 2024-2025 Theodore H. Holmes ’51 and Bernice Holmes Visiting Poet Monica Youn, a National Book Award finalist, past Guggenheim Fellow, and Princeton alumna, Class of 1993, on February 25 at 6:00 p.m. in the Wallace Theater at the Lewis Arts complex on the Princeton University campus. The reading is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. A book signing will follow with books available for purchase through Labyrinth Books. The Wallace Theater is wheelchair accessible with an assistive listening system. Guests in need of other access accommodations are asked to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.
Poet Monica Youn. Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan
Youn is the author of four poetry collections, most recently From From (Graywolf Press 2023), which was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Award, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN Voelcker Award, and was longlisted for the PEN Jean Stein Award. From From was a New York Times Notable Book and Best Poetry Book of 2023, as well as being named a best book of the year by Time Magazine, NPR, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Her previous book, Blackacre, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Award and the PEN Open Book Award, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was named a best poetry book of 2016 by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Paris Review. Her book Ignatz was also a finalist for the National Book Award.
Youn has been awarded the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Witter Bytter Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a Stegner Fellowship. A former constitutional lawyer, she is a member of the curatorial collective the Racial Imaginary Institute and is professor of English at UC Irvine. She previously taught in Princeton’s Program in Creative Writing.
As the Holmes visiting poet and visiting professor of creative writing during this current academic year, Youn has been teaching courses in introductory and advanced poetry.
Recent past Holmes visiting poets have included Marilyn Chin, Tyehimba Jess, and Claudia Rankine.
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the Program in Creative Writing, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events presented by the Lewis Center each year, most of them free.
