Poet Oliver de la Paz to Give Public Reading at W&L The event is free and open to the public, and books will be available for sale following the reading.

By Erica Turman
November 6, 2018

Poet Oliver de la Paz will give a public reading at Washington and Lee University on Nov. 13 at 5 p.m. in Northen Auditorium on the W&L campus. The event is free and open to the public, and books will be available for sale following the reading.

“I’ve long admired the intelligence of Oliver’s poems and the innovative ways he tackles big subjects—identity, place, power,” said Lesley Wheeler, Henry S. Fox Professor of English. “I’m also really excited by his brand new work, some of which, like ‘Autism Screening Questionnaire — Speech and Language Delay,’ is inspired by raising children on the autism spectrum.”

Paz is the author of five collections of poetry, “Names Above Houses,” “Furious Lullaby,” “Requiem for the Orchard,” “Post Subject: A Fable” and his forthcoming book, “The Boy in the Labyrinth.”

He is also co-editor of “A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry.” He co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of Asian-American poetry, and is a former member of the board of trustees for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.

A recipient of an NYFA Fellowship Award and a GAP Grant from Artist Trust, his work has appeared in journals like Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tin House and Poetry, and in anthologies such as “Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation.” He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University.