OXFORD, Miss. – An award-winning University of Mississippi
faculty author has scheduled a promotional appearance to
celebrate her fourth and latest book.
Beth Ann Fennelly, associate professor of English, is
slated to read from “Unmentionables: Poems” (W.W. Norton,
2008) April 18 at Off Square Books, 129 Courthouse Square,
in Oxford. She plans to autograph purchased copies
beginning at 5 p.m., with the reading to follow. The event
is free and open to the public.
“Divided into seven sections, the book explores the
unmentionable – not only what is too bold to be mentioned
but what can’t be said because the intended listener is
unavailable or because our language is insufficient,” said
Fennelly, winner of the 2002 Kenyon Review Prize and the
GLAC New Writers Award for “Open House” (Zoo Press, 2002).
“These poems investigate the mystery of human relationships
– between lovers, family members, individuals and society,
ourselves and our perception of ourselves.”
Even before its April 7 release, the volume had attracted
critical acclaim.
“(Fennelly) is a phenomenon,” wrote a reviewer for The
Missouri Review. A critic in The Harvard Review described
Fennelly as “one of the most exciting poets of her
generation.”
Fennelly is accustomed to literary praise. Her chapbook “A
Different Kind of Hunger” (Texas Review Press, 1997) also
won the 1997 Texas Review Breakthrough Award.
Notre Dame Review critic Jeff Roessner wrote, “The dynamic
sense of life distilled in Fennelly’s verse, along with her
gifted use of personae, provide clear evidence of her
unique and compelling voice.”
Fennelly indicates that her latest poetry collection ranges
widely in subject matter and form.
“I wrote ‘The Kudzu Chronicles’ because I started thinking
about how when I moved to Mississippi I felt that the
rolling, verdant landscape spoke to me in a way that the
prairies of Illinois, where I was raised, did not,”
Fennelly said. “I wrote ‘Berte Morisot: Retrospective’
after I took a tour of the National Gallery in Washington,
D.C. While writing this poem, I was able to explore the
decisions a female artist makes when balancing fulfillment
in one’s personal life versus fulfillment in art.”
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and University
of Arkansas, Fennelly was a recipient of the Diane
Middlebrook Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of
Wisconsin. A member of the UM faculty since 2003, she
teaches creative writing courses.
Fennelly is a Pushcart Prize winner and has been listed
three times, 1996, 2005 and 2006, in The Best American
Poetry Series. She read her poetry at the Library of
Congress at the invitation of the U.S. poet laureate.
For more information about the Department of English, call
662-915-7439 or go to