Three renowned poets -- Robert Pinsky, U.S. poet laureate; Yehuda Amichai, winner of the Israel Prize, that nation's highest cultural honor; and John Hollander, considered one of the leading scholar-poets in the United States -- will gather for a public symposium on "Poetic Responsibilities" at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 6, at Battell Chapel, corner of College and Elm streets.
In addition, Mr. Amichai will give a poetry reading and talk that day at 8 p.m. in the Law School's Levinson Auditorium, 127 Wall St. The events, which are free and open to the public, will kick off Yale Hillel's year-long salute to the 50th anniversary of the founding of Israel. They are sponsored by the David and Goldie Blanksteen Lectureship in Jewish Ethics.
Mr. Pinsky, the United States' 39th poet laureate, is currently a professor of graduate writing at Boston University. He is the author of five books of poetry, the most recent of which is "The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996." His translation of Dante's "The Inferno" became a best-seller and received the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Howard Morton Landon Prize for Translation.
Mr. Amichai is a resident of Jerusalem, where he has lived for 50 years. He has been described as the "first truly modern Hebrew poet" -- one who has "revolutionized the poetic idiom through his startling use of language." In addition to his 12 books of poetry, Mr. Amichai has written short stories and novels. The recently published book "Yehuda Amichai: A Life of Poetry 1948-1994" was translated into English from Hebrew by Yale professor Benjamin Harshav and his wife, Barbara.
Mr. Hollander is Sterling Professor of English at Yale, where he has been a faculty member since 1977. He has written 21 volumes of poetry and received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1990. He also has served as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Yale Hillel's David and Goldie Blanksteen Lectureship in Jewish Ethics was established to provide the campus community with an opportunity to discuss critical ethical questions of the moment with leading thinkers, artists and activists. Yale Hillel provides religious, cultural, intellectual and social programming for Yale and the Greater New Haven Jewish community. For further information, call the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, 432-1134.