Art & Soul/Beall Poetry Festival

Spring at Baylor brings two of the University's finest literary events, Art & Soul March 20-23 and the Beall Poetry Festival April 7-9.
The fifth year of Art & Soul, Baylor's religious faith and literary art program, will feature best-selling author and poet Kathleen Norris. 
"Norris writes in a way that is, at the same time, literary and accessible," said Dr. Greg Garrett, director of the event and associate professor of English. "Her honesty in talking about her own experience makes reading her work powerful and moving."
Her works include The Cloister Walk, Dakota, Amazing Grace and The Virgin of Bennington.
"Mystery and Meaning" is the theme of this year's Art & Soul and includes a national writing conference, scholarly symposium and several public events.
Poets Scott Cairns and Diane Glancy will return to Baylor, joining more than 20 other presenters at Art & Soul. 
In its ninth year, Beall Poetry Festival is an opportunity for Central Texans to rediscover the impact of poetry, according to Dr. Nancy Chinn, chair of the festival committee and associate professor of English.
"For the listening audience it reminds them that poetry is valuable, alive and exciting," she said.
The Beall Poetry Festival brings Robert Pinsky, the 1997 U.S. Poet Laureate, to campus. Pinsky is the author of six books of poetry, his most recent being Jersey Rain (2000). The Sounds of Poetry (1988), a book of criticism, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Joining Pinsky will be Frank Bidart, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated author from Wellesley College; Molly Peacock, poet-in-residence at Poets' Corner, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine; David St. John, who teaches at the University of Southern California; and Christopher Ricks, the Warren Professor of Humanities at Boston University.
Beall Poetry Festival events are free to the public and include poetry readings, a panel discussion, a lecture on contemporary poetry and a student literary contest awards ceremony. The festival is supported by the John A. and DeLouise McClelland Beall Endowed Fund, established in 1994 by Mrs. Virginia A. Ball of Muncie, Ind., to honor her parents and encourage the writing and appreciation of poetry.
For more information for Beall Poetry Festival, visit www.baylor.edu/beall.