| William Blackburn began the then-titled Archive Festival in 1959 as a
student-run series of literary gatherings at Duke University. The first year
included such talents as Randall Jerrel and William Styron.
In 1969 the Festival was officially renamed to honor Professor Blackburn. Since then,
the Festival has annually sponsored a variety of events including readings by
both established and up-and-coming authors, book signings, and guest lectures in Duke classes.
Among those who have read at the Festival are Bernard Malamud, Richard Eberhart, James Wright,
W.D. Snodgrass, Toni Morrison, John Updike, Elizabeth Bishop, Joseph Heller and Eudora Welty. |
Blackburn '98
| The Spring 1998 Festival welcomed famed authors Michael Ondaatje and Marge Piercy to Duke.
The events opened with a rare joint reading by the six creative writing faculty members as a
tribute to William Blackburn in the Oriental Reading Room of Lilly Library. The festival continued
with a reading by Marge Piercy in the Duke University Museum of Art, which included candid, elegant
political and personal poems from many of her twelve books of poetry. Michael Ondaatje read poems
from The Cinnamon Peeler and excerpts from The English Patient for an audience of 500
in his silvery Ceylonese accent. Events also included a night of joint faculty and student dramatic
readings in the East Duke Parlors featuring Ariel Dorfman and his son Roderigo Dorfman. Cherished
African-American poets Lucille Clifton and Philip Shabazz read together in the crowded Mary Duke
Biddle Rare Book Room. The following evening, North Carolina poets Jim Seay and Alan Shapiro read
in the Rare Book Room; and the entire Festival concluded with a faculty and student open-mic
poetry reading in the Duke Coffeehouse with live jazz piano music.
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Blackburn '99
| Sharon Olds, Marylin Chin, Joyce Carol Oates... Full summary coming soon.
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Blackburn 2000
| The 2000 Blackburn Festival began on Wednesday, April 5 with a reading by National Book Award Winner
Barry Lopez. Mr. Lopez gave a wonderful reading of a new stories that dealt with the exploration
of personal and physical landscapes. Visiting Blackburn Professor Amy Hempel and Professor Andrea Selch
read the next evening from their short fiction and poetry, respectively. 'a local avant-garde?' an evening of poetic disruption exposed the Blackburn audience to
multimedia presentations and deconstruction of language.
On Wednesday, April 12, Professor Joe Ashby Porter read
from a short story forthcoming in the Yale Review. The next evening, Pulitzter Prize-winner
Maxine Kumin read from selected poems in the Love Auditorium. The Drama New Works presentation on Friday evening
presented four student-written one-act plays. On Saturday, North Carolina Poet Laureate Fred Chappell joined
the festival from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to read from a funny and insightful series of poems
about family. The festival concluded on Sunday, April 16 with a poetry reading by Duke Professor James Applewhite.
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Blackburn 2001 (summary forthcoming)
Blackburn 2002
| This year was a landmark year for the Festival, which ran from April 8-19. The Festival officially began with a series of readings by Duke and Triangle authors - Elizabeth Cox, Joe Donahue, Michael Malone. Not just Duke faculty read their work, however - there were opportunities for Duke students and anyone else interested to display their creative talent (as Professor Blackburn would have so loved) in the open-mic night - publicly co-sponsored with the new undergraduate literary society, the Duke Poets Society - hosted at the East Campus Coffeehouse. The highlight of the Festival was two visits by internationally recognized authors - one by W.S. Merwin, the distinguished poet, translator, and essayist, author of such works as The Carrier of Ladders (which received the Pulitzer Prize in 1970), a translation of Dante's Purgatorio, and a new poetry collection, The Pupil. Not only did Mr. Merwin give a reading of his new and upcoming work, but dinners and smaller, round-table discussions with Mr. Merwin and other Duke faculty also created an stimulating environment for teaching, learning, and growing in students' literary lives. Mr. Merwin's presence on campus proved to be dynamic and engaging, and, as his works are major figures in contemporary American poetry and culture, a hallmark for the Festival. The end of the Festival coincided with the Duke Theater Studies Department's stage adaptation of Mao II by Don DeLillo, the Blackburn Festival co-sponsoring the opening night's run and a reception afterwards. Mr. DeLillo himself formally closed out the Festival by reading from his work and hosting an informal discussion afterwards. |