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Welcome & Introduction

Good evening. It’s great to have everyone here. My name is John Ulmschneider. I’m the university librarian here at Virginia Commonwealth University. On behalf of the faculty, staff, and students of Virginia Commonwealth University, I extend to all of you our warmest welcome to this nineteenth celebration of the Levis Reading Prize.

The Levis Prize is named in honor of the renowned poet Larry Levis, who taught here at VCU until his untimely passing in 1996. The prize pays tribute to the wide-ranging, uncompromising, and deeply moving poetry of Levis, his extraordinary mastery of craft, and the continued growth of his influence and recognition among writers and readers as one of America’s greatest poetic voices.

I’m delighted to say that is quite a special year in the steady expansion of Levis’s impact on American poetry. A powerful new documentary film about Larry Levis will premiere later this week at the prestigious Mill Valley Film Festival. A Late Style of Fire: Larry Levis, American Poet, is the result of over five years of work and a passionate commitment to telling the Levis story by Michele Poulous, with the unflagging assistance and encouragement of our own Greg Donovan. It brings Larry Levis to a much wider audience than ever before, and captures for us all the power of his work and the immense impact he has had on American poets everywhere. It will be screened again in November at the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville, and I hope all of you will make time to attend.

The Levis Prize is given each year to a poet whose first or second book is judged the very best of poetry books published during the previous calendar year. Each year we receive around 150 nominations. The selection of the winner is an intensive process that requires the talents and energies of readers from the MFA program at VCU, other readers from the extended VCU community, and even participants outside of the immediate VCU community who are deep readers of poetry. The winner is selected from among the finalists by a panel of judges from the MFA faculty at VCU, who are the driving force behind VCU’s recognition as one of the most distinguished writing programs in the nation.

It’s a rigorous process, and you can see why we’re so proud to have this year’s winner, Rickey Laurentiis, with us tonight. I know we all look forward to hearing him read.

The VCU Libraries is proud to hold the papers of Larry Levis and personal effects from his life, including his iconic boots and leather jacket. We also are delighted to provide significant financial and logistical support each year. Our new lecture hall is an important part of that support, and as you can see, it’s a fabulous space for readings and events, a space like none other at VCU.

But here is a request from me to you: we need your help to make this new space truly the very best of its kind in Virginia for events like poetry readings and scholarly lectures. Construction may be completed on this wonderful new building, but we are by no means finished with creating our great new library. We have a lot left to do that state funds simply do not support. Your donations are essential to help us fulfill the full promise of this fabulous space, and I hope you will consider making a pledge to our ongoing building campaign.

The Levis Reading Prize itself is an example of how important the support of donors can be to creating a world-class university. The prize is made possible by sponsorship from the VCU Department of English, the VCU Libraries, the College of Humanities and Sciences, and not least from our friends from the Barnes & Noble @ VCU bookstore and the extended family of Larry Levis.

Opening our program tonight is Greg Donovan, professor of English here at VCU. Greg is the Senior Editor of the esteemed literary journal Blackbird, and published his latest book of poems, Torn from the Sun, last year. Greg was a close friend and colleague of Larry Levis, and each year he shares with us some of his experiences with Larry to help us examine, reflect on, and remember the life and work of Larry, and invokes Larry’s spirit into this occasion we have set aside to honor his memory.

Ladies and gentlemen, Greg Donovan.  

John Ulmschneider is a professor and the university librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University.