Welcome to Arkansas State University!

News Article

Poet Ed Madden to Give Reading during Delta Symposium XXVIII

03/29/2023

JONESBORO – In conjunction with Delta Symposium XXVIII: Labor History and Contemporary Laborlore, the English, Philosophy, and World Languages Department at Arkansas State University will welcome writer and poet Ed Madden to Arkansas State University.

The acclaimed poet will give a reading at 7 p.m. Friday, March 31, in the Mockingbird Room of the Carl R. Reng Student Union. The event is free and open to the public.

Madden is the author of four other books and four chapbooks of poetry, most recently “Ark,” about his father’s last months in hospice care, and “So they can sing,” which won the 2016 Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. He is a professor of English and the former director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches Irish literature, queer studies, and creative writing.

From 2015 through 2022, Ed has served as the poet laureate for the City of Columbia, S.C. He is recipient of an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship and artist residencies at the Hambidge Center in Georgia and the Instituto Sacatar in Itaparica, Brazil.

Earlier in the day, Madden will meet with A-State students who are taking courses in poetry and creative writing. He is especially interested in their own presentations of their creative work that will be featured in a special event held at 4:15 in the Mockingbird Room. This event will feature poetry by Dr. John Zheng of Mississippi Valley State University and student selections from Tributary, the university’s student literary magazine.

More details about Delta Symposium XXVIII is available on the symposium website, AState.edu/delta-symposium.

Ed Madden photo
Ed Madden