Bard Professor Robert Kelly Named Inaugural Dutchess County Poet Laureate

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Bard College professor Robert Kelly has been appointed Dutchess County’s first poet laureate. Kelly will read two poems at the State of the County Address, which County Executive Marc Molinaro is scheduled to deliver on Wednesday, January 27 at 5:30 p.m. at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie.

Kelly will serve a one-year term and bring poetry to the community through a series of readings and events. Arts Mid-Hudson, the Poughkeepsie-based, regional arts organization, managed the public call for nominations and invited a panel of literary professionals and community members to make the selection from 39 nominations.

“He’s a world-class poet,” said Linda Marston-Reid, executive director of Arts Mid-Hudson. “He’s very modest, too.”

Kelly is the founding director of the writing program at Bard’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts. He currently serves as the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature and codirector of the Program in Written Arts at Bard College. Kelly has taught at Bard since 1961 and has published more than 50 books of poetry and prose. Major poetry books include The Common Shore, The Loom, Kill the Messenger, Not This Island Music, The Flowers of Unceasing Coincidence, A Strange Market, Red Actions, The Time of Voice, The Garden of Distances, Lapis, Runes, Threads, May Day. His poems and stories have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German and Serbian.
 

This event was last updated on 01-26-2016

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