The New York State Writers Institute mourns the passing of our beloved friend and colleague John Montague, major Irish poet of his generation and long-time faculty member of the Institute and the University at Albany. The author of more than 30 books of poetry and a recipient of the Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur, France’s highest award, he died in Nice on December 10, 2016, following surgery.
Born in Brooklyn on February 28, 1929, and raised in County Tyrone, Montague served as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence for the New York State Writers Institute during each spring semester, teaching workshops in fiction and poetry and a class in the English Department, University at Albany. Governor Mario M. Cuomo presented Montague a citation in 1987 “for his outstanding literary achievements and his contributions to the people of New York.”
In 1998, he was named the very first Ireland Professor of Poetry, a new position created to honor the shared literary heritage of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, with joint appointments at Trinity College Dublin, Queen’s University Belfast and University College Dublin.
Read this account of his funeral in the Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/john-montague-remembered-at-funeral-as-poet-of-wonder-1.2906056 Read More......
The
Writers Institute Fall 2016 schedule begins with an exciting new program
collaboration "The Creative Life: A Conversation Series at
UAlbany." Created and produced by the Writers Institute, University
Art Museum, and UAlbany's Performing Arts Center, in collaboration with WAMC
Public Radio, this new series features leading figures from a variety of
artistic disciplines in conversation about their creative inspirations, their
crafts, and their careers. Joyce Carol Oates, prolific author
of more than 160 books, will lead off the series on September 15 followed by Savion
Glover, tap dancing legend and Tony award-winning choreographer on
October 15.
A
second series, "The New Americans: Recent Immigrant Experiences in
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Film" examines the experiences of recent
immigrant groups in the United States. Guests will include Imbolo Mbue,
recipient of a million dollar advance, whose first novel Behold the
Dreamers (2016) is a riveting story about a young Cameroonian couple
making a new life in New York City just as the depression of the 2000s upends
the economy; Anne Fadiman, author of the bestselling nonfiction
book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997), which explores
the clash between Western medicine and the holistic healing traditions of a
Hmong refugee family from Laos; and director Mary Mazzio,
whose documentary film UNDERWATER DREAMS follows a group of high school
students, sons of undocumented Mexican immigrants, who enter a sophisticated
underwater robotics competition.
