Patrick Lawler to read award-winning poetry at ESF

03/26/2013

Award-winning poet and novelist Patrick Lawler will sign books and read from his works from 5 to 7 p.m., April 4 on the campus of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF).

The book signing will begin at 5:15 in Alumni Lounge in Marshall Hall, with the reading commencing at 6 p.m. The event, which is free and open to the public is sponsored by Department of Environmental Studies and the Writing Program.

Lawler, professor emeritus and Writing Program director at ESF from 1990 to 2009, is the author of five collections of poetry and one novel. His poetry manuscript, "Trade World Center" was a finalist for the Cathlamet Prize for Poetry. Other collections of poetry are "Underground (Notes Toward an Autobiography);" "Feeding the Fear of the Earth; reading a burning book;" and "A Drowning Man is Never Tall Enough."

His recent novel, "Rescuers of Skydivers Search Among the Clouds" won the Ronald Sukenick/American Book Review Prize for Innovative Fiction. According to the publisher, "Skydivers is about resonance, echoes, and naming; about hiding inside of names; about standing completely still; and about the fractalization of family. Every character wears a variety of masks, and every place is also someplace else."

Lawler is Writer in Residence at Le Moyne College where he teaches poetry, fiction, scriptwriting, and playwriting. He is visiting professor in Syracuse University's Creative Writing Program. Lawler is recipient of fellowships from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. His poetry and fiction have appeared in more than 100 journals, including "The Iowa Review," "Many Mountains Moving," and "The American Poetry Review." His plays include "Voice/Box," "What's Inside," and "Circle of Willis."