Media Contact: Matt Bowden
Email: mtbowden1@jhu.edu
Phone: (410) 735-6045 BALTIMORE Spring, 2009— The Joshua Ringel Memorial Reading celebrates its twelfth season on Sunday, April 26, at 5 p.m. when poet Kevin Young takes to the Hodson Hall podium on the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus. 2003 National Book Award nominee is "tender, sassy, and just plain cool"
"Tender, sassy, and just plain cool," says former Ringel Poet Billy Collins about Kevin Young. Mr. Young is widely regarded as one of the leading poets of his generation. A National Book Award finalist and regular contributor to the New Yorker and other publications, Young’s most recent collection is Dear Darkness (2008). Young has written five other volumes of poetry: Most Way Home (1995, a National Poetry Series selection); To Repel Ghosts (2001); Jelly Roll: A Blues (2003); Black Maria (2005); and For the Confederate Dead (2007). “[His] gift of storytelling and understanding of the music inherent in the oral tradition of language re-creates for us an inner history which is compelling and authentic and American," says poet Lucille Clifton. "Writing is a necessity,” Young explains. “It's not just fun, though it can be fun, and it's not just torture, though it can be torture, too. I think the point is really to find that middle ground between pleasure and necessity, and for me that's what a poem is." Mr. Young is the Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing and curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, a 75,000-volume rare book library, at Emory University. The Ringel Fund
The Joshua Ringel Memorial Fund (www.cty.jhu.edu/ringel) was established in 1998 by the Ringel family in memory of this former CTY student whose life was tragically cut short in a motorcycle accident just before his 28th birthday. The Memorial Fund supports an annual lecture/reading dedicated to education, poetry, and the imagination. Past visiting poets have included Kenneth Koch, Robert Pinsky, Grace Paley, John Ashbery, Sharon Olds, and Billy Collins. A 4:30 reception precedes the event, with a book signing immediately after. Books will be available for purchase at the door. The reading is free, but seats are limited, so please email ctypr@jhu.edu with your name and number of seats requested. More info, including event directions, is available at www.cty.jhu.edu/ringel. # # # The Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (www.cty.jhu.edu) conducts the nation's oldest and most extensive academic talent search and offers educational programming for students with exceptionally high academic ability. CTY parallels, and complements, a gifted child’s regular school experience. CTY’s programs and students have been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and other premier American publications. The Gilman School (www.gilman.edu) founded in 1897, is a diverse K-12 independent school community dedicated to educating boys in mind, body, and spirit through particular emphasis on academic excellence, athletic participation, and aesthetic appreciation. Gilman seeks to produce men of character and integrity who have the skills and ability to make a positive contribution to the communities in which they live and work. Gilman remains committed to the ideas established by its founder Anne Galbraith Carey more than a century ag helping boys develop in mind, body, and spirit while preparing them for college and life of honor and service. Teachers & Writers Collaborative [T&W] (www.twc.org) is a New York-based nonprofit founded on the belief that professional writers could make a unique contribution to the teaching of writing and literature. T&W sends writers into schools; publishes a magazine and books on teaching writing; offers readings and events in New York; and hosts a website with a national forum for educators and writers. WYPR 88.1FM (www.wypr.org) is Baltimore's National Public Radio station, and a media sponsor for this year's reading. # # # | 
