OXFORD, Miss. – Award-winning poet Tung-Hui Hu has been
chosen from more than a hundred applicants worldwide as the
second Summer Poet in Residence at the University of
Mississippi.
The acclaimed author is to be provided housing in the
Lawrence House June 15-July 15.
“This year we received more than a hundred applicants from
all over the country and even a few international ones,”
said Beth Ann Fennelly, associate professor of English and
SPiR program director. “We selected Tung-Hui for his
amazing lyrical cadences and haunting and spare images. His
resume shows an active mind engaged in many different kinds
of inquiry.”
The Summer Poet in Residence Fellowship, inaugurated last
year, bridges the gap between the Grisham Visiting Writers
Series of the spring and fall, said Patrick Quinn, chair of
the Department of English. “For our students to now have
year-round access to great literary leaders is an exciting
cultural opportunity.”
While at UM, Hu is to give a public lecture/reading, make
weekly classroom visits and co-host a writers’ salon for
graduate students. He also plans to continue working on his
poetry collection “Greenhouses, Lighthouses.”
“During the residency, I hope to complete a series of
palinodes, poems that literally sing back or recant
something,” Hu said. “I’m trying to write about a moment
that has gone missing, whether it’s activism in 1964 or the
disappearance of bees from U.S. agriculture.”
Hu’s poems have appeared in The New Republic, Ontario
Review and Ploughshares, among other publications. Selected
poems to be included in his third poetry collection
recently won the 2007 James D. Phelan Literary Award.
He is the author of “The Book of Motion” (University of
Georgia Press, 2003) and “Mine” (Ausable Press, 2007),
which won an Eisner Prize. A graduate of Princeton
University and the University of Michigan, he is pursuing a
doctorate in film studies at the University of
California-Berkeley. Hu has received fellowships from
MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony and the Virginia Center for
the Creative Arts.
“He is a fascinating writer,” said Ann Fisher-Wirth,
professor of English. “I know he will offer a great deal to
our MFA students in poetry, and I am very pleased that he
will be a part of our community.”
Fisher-Wirth said Hu’s letter regarding his poetic projects
and the poems he submitted with his application evinced “a
deep and sophisticated intellectual curiosity.”
“This fresh and unexpected poet extends the lyric into the
social space without losing any of song’s intensity or
mystery,” wrote poet Mark Doty.
Hu listed some of his favorite poets as Mark McMorris and
C.D. Wright. “I’m interested in their voice, which turns
everyday speech into a poetry outside of time,” he said.
Hu has worked as a political consultant and computer
scientist. He resides in San Francisco, where he writes on
film and new media.
Award-winning poet Paula Bohince was the inaugural Summer
Poet in Residence in 2007. For more information about the
Summer Poet in Residence Program at the University of
Mississippi, call Beth Ann Fennelly at 662-513-4327 or go
to their Web site.