Presented in affiliation with the Inspired Writers Series hosted by MFA Program’s Phil Klay
What are the ethics of writing about war and atrocity, and what can we learn from both journalistic and poetic approaches to conflict? Award-winning poet and journalist Tom Sleigh, recipient of the Kingsley Tufts Award, Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, John Updike Award and Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, has written powerful and complex work about conflict across his distinguished career. He will discuss writing conflict with Fairfield professor and National Book Award-winning author Phil Klay.
Tom Sleigh is the author of eleven books of poetry including winner of the 2023 Paterson Poetry Prize The King’s Touch (Graywolf Press, 2022), House of Fact, House of Ruin (Graywolf Press, 2018), Station Zed (Graywolf Press, 2015), and Army Cats (Graywolf Press, 2011). His most recent book of essays, The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing In an Age of Refugees (Graywolf Press, 2018) recounts his time as a journalist in the Middle East and Africa. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, NEA grant recipient, and winner of numerous awards including the Kingsley Tufts Award, Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, John Updike Award and Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His poems appear in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Threepenny Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, Harvard Review, Raritan, The Common, and many other magazines. He is a Distinguished Professor in the MFA Program at Hunter College and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.