American poet and literary critic J.D. McClatchy will read his poetry at Greenwich Library on Sunday, June 25 at 2 p.m. as part of The Poet’s Voice series. A Q&A and book signing will follow the reading.
McClatchy is a former president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters. His body of poetic work is wide-ranging. He has authored eight collections of poetry, the fifth of which, Hazmat, was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. His most recent poetry collection is Plundered Hearts: New and Selected Poems (Knopf). He is also the author of four books of prose, the latest being Sweet Theft: A Poet’s Commonplace Book (Counterpoint).
In addition, McClatchy plays an increasingly prominent role in the opera house as a librettist. He has written 17 opera libretti, and his work has been performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, La Scala, the San Francisco Opera, and other leading opera houses around the world. Many of his poems have been set to song by various composers.
McClatchy was named a New York Public Library Literary Lion and received the 2000 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award. He served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1996 until 2003. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets. He has just retired from teaching at Yale and editing The Yale Review for thirty years. He lives in Stonington.