The Critically Acclaimed Blackburn Literary Festival returns to Duke

Amidst the basketball, the beach and the beer that all appear as mainfestations of springtime at Duke, the Blackburn Literary Festival stands out like the proverbial sore thumb. Yet the festival, founded in 1959, has been as much a University tradition as our more modern printemps diversions. For those who love words as much as they love basking in the sun, the festival offers plenty of moving, thought-provoking literature-in the form of free readings spread out over nine days-until April 2.

The annual event, sponsored by The Archive and the Undergraduate Publications Board, attempts to bring distinguished novelists, poets and other literary cognoscetti to read on campus, as well showcasing the talent of writers within the community.

Past festivals have featured the august likes of Toni Morrison, Carlos Fuentes, Joyce Carol Oates, Derek Walcott and John Irving. This year's out-of-town luminary, the Chicago-based Li-Young Lee, has already read from his latest volume of poetry, The City In Which I Love You. But the rest of the festival features many of the professors whose classes most English majors in the know would commit felonies to get into. Luckily, no law-breaking is required to get into readings, which will feature some new work from many of the featured authors.

Deborah Pope and Joe Ashby Porter, both professors in the illustrious English department, will read in the Breedlove Room in Perkins Library at 6:30 p.m on March 31. Pope, who is expected to read from her previous two books of poems, Fanatic Heart and Mortal World, will also read from her soon-to-be-published work, Falling Out of the Sky. Porter is expected to read from one of his three books of fiction, one of which, The Kentucky Stories, was a Pulitzer Prize nominee.

James Applewhite, professor of English, will read poetry from all new work: Daytime and Starlight, due out in May, as well as the book-length poem currently in progress, Representing My Father. He will read at the Duke University Museum of Art's North Gallery at 6 p.m. on April 1.

Frank Lentricchia and Ariel Dorfman, both professors of literature, will be showcased at 8 p.m. at the same place. Lentricchia will read from his novels Johnny Cristelli and The Knifemen; Dorfman will read from his book, Last Waltz in Santiago, as well as from his soon-to-be-published Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey.

Closing the festival of readings will be professor of English Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, who will read poems from Fat Art, Thin Art, as well as sections from her new project, A Dialogue on Love.

To round out the experience, if all this literary activity inspires your own muse, there's an Open Mike Night at the Coffeehouse at 10 p.m. Bring your bongos, snap your fingers.