Not Your Usual Poetry Reading

Andrew Hudgins, poet and Alabama graduate will speak in the Norton Theatre on Tuesday, November 9 during Common Hour. Ned Balbo of The Antioch Review* says Hudgins' "skill, economy and sense of mischief" confirm his place as "one of our few indispensable poets." Mr. Hudgins attended Huntington College in Montgomery and teaches at The Ohio State University. He has won several awards for poetry. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Award and has published numerous poems and books such as Shut Up, You're Fine and After the Lost War, A Narrative. This event qualifies for CEIS credit.

*The Antioch Review. 62:1, Winter 2004

Pacifist

I said I was a pacifist.
I wouldn't kill a flea.
All living things are sanctified--
at least as much as me.

But ants kept running underneath
my shoes, to my regret.
Mom gave me pin-worm medicine,
and gnats drowned in my sweat.

Mosquitoes landed on my neck.
I slapped before I thought.
And when I saw my bloody palm
I wasn't overwrought.

My baseball glove is made of skin
stripped from a cow, and dried,
and the chicken in my chicken pie
is not a suicide.

"Though I love baseball and meat pie,
These deaths are not my fault,"
I said. Then, hell, I went outside,
and covered snails with salt.

--from The Antioch Review, 61:3, Summer 2003