The Magill Poetry Series
For over a quarter of a century, the Department of English has hosted the Magill Poetry Series, welcoming poets from all over the world.
We hold this annual poetry reading to honor the memory of Dr. Frank Magill and his extraordinary commitment to and passion for poetry. Jim Magill, Frank’s son, has continued his own dedication to this series and its recognition of the importance of poetry in the life of our culture.
Cal Bedient
Poem after poem, line by line, Cal Bedient has grown more exuberant, uncompromising, and unruly. The more control he can access, the more gleefully though choosily he can dispose of interference, any intermediary between himself and the moment. His forms are as multiple as they are true to their concerns; each is sonically on the mark and packed, optically tight. “Socrates had his demon,” he writes, “honk if you have a demon.” He honks every time he passes. It is the promiscuous disunity, the arrant variety of being, seeing, declaiming and discerning at which Cal Bedient so excels. . .
The inner drives swerve from being feathered with bliss to a collision with an unfinished life. All gets “lusciously worded up” and multiplied 16 x16 x 16 times . . . What a lunge; what a rush.
– C.D. Wright, author of One With Others
Past featured poets
| 2024 – Annelyse Gelman
2023 – Bruce Bond 2022 – Tom Sleigh 2019 – Angie Estes 2018 – Arthur Sze 2017 – Forrest Gander 2016 – Linda Gregerson 2015 – Mary Ruefle 2014 – Yusef Komunyakaa 2013 – James Tate 2011 – Paul Muldoon 2010 – Carolyn Forché |
2009 – Robert Hass
2008 – Stanley Plumly 2007 – Jorie Graham 2006 – Philip Levine & W. S. Merwin 2005 – Rita Dove 2004 – Donald Revell 2003 – Donald Hall 2002 – Alan Shapiro 2001 – Thom Gunn 2000 – C. K. Williams 1999 – Charles Simic |
1998 – Marilyn Nelson
1997 – Philip Levine 1996 – Carolyn Kizer 1995 – Charles Wright 1994 – W. S. Merwin 1993 – Eavan Boland 1992 – Adrienne Rich 1991 – Mark Strand 1990 – Richard Wilbur 1989 – Louise Gluck 1988 – James Merrill 1987 – Czeslaw Milosz |
Contact Details
USC Department of English
3501 Trousdale Parkway
Taper Hall of Humanities 404
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0354