Summer Poetry with Judson Scruton: The Singing School of Robert Pinsky

Please join us as Judson Scruton leads lively, informal discussions as we explore Robert Pinsky’s Singing School. A seminar outline and schedule with links to the relevant poems will be sent out in advance of the series; please enter your email address during registration to receive the packet.

Robert Pinsky is certainly one the most significant champions of poetry now living, a celebrated poet, essayist, translator, and teacher. Diverse highlights of his career include being the first three-time US Poet Laureate and founding “The Favorite Poetry Project,” publishing a best-selling translation of Dante’s Inferno, recording “Poem Jazz” with Grammy -Winning pianist Lawrence Hobgood, and serving as a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Graduate Writing Program at Boston University.   

Pinsky’s Singing School (2013) is a unique combination anthology, personal essay, and textbook. We will be using this ingenious book to explore his approach to reading poetry. We will also read and discuss some of Pinsky’s own marvelous poems that, as The New York Times puts it, “bristle with linguistic energy.”  Critic Katha Pollitt observed that “what makes Mr. Pinsky such a rewarding and exciting writer is the sense he gives, in the very shape and structure of his poems, of getting at the depths of human experience, in which everything is always repeated but also always new.”

Advance registration is required. Register online or call 203-762-6334.  There is no charge for this program. By registering for the first session you will automatically be registered for all four sessions. This lecture series is made possible with the support of the Literary Series in Memory of Amy Quigley.  Please email Andrea Sato with any questions at asato@wiltonlibrary.org.  

Judson Scruton M.A. (The Johns Hopkins University, The Writing Seminars, specializing in poetry) has taught creative writing and literature at prep schools and universities. In his career as an educator Judson has also directed publications, communications, public relations, and development at a variety of educational institutions in the U.S. and U.K. including the Newberry Library in Chicago.