DALLAS TWP. — The Soyka Fund for the Humanities at Misericordia University is sponsoring the free reading, “Pilgrims, Poets & Saints: From Sinatra to Springsteen,” on Monday, March 18 from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. by poet and author Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, Ph.D., in the second floor Founders Room of Mercy Hall.
The poems address O’Donnell’s native Northeastern Pennsylvania, the enduring legacy of family, and the ways in which people’s lives are defined by the pattern of their pilgrimage. The reading is open to the public.
A native of West Wyoming and graduate of Wyoming Area High School, O’Donnell teaches courses in English literature and creative writing at Fordham University in New York City and is associate director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Her publications include two chapbooks, and five collections of poetry: “Moving House” (2009), “Saint Sinatra” (2011), “Waking My Mother” (2013), “Lovers’ Almanac” (2015), and “Still Pilgrim” (April 2017). In addition, she authored the memoir, “Mortal Blessings” (2014).
O’Donnell is a Flannery O’Connor scholar and poet. Her critical biography, “Flannery O’Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith” (2015), won first prize for excellence in biography from the Association of Catholic Publishers. O’Connor was a Southern Gothic novelist, short story writer and essayist from Savannah, Georgia (1925-1964), whose Catholic faith influenced her writing of two novels and 32 short stories.
O’Donnell recently completed a book-length study of O’Connor and race, as well as a collection of 101 poems that channel the voice of O’Connor, entitled “Andalusian Hours: Poems from the Porch of Flannery O’Connor.” The latter two books are forthcoming in spring 2020 from Fordham University Press and Paraclete Press, respectively.
O’Donnell’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Web Award, and the Arlin G. Meyer Prize in Imaginative Writing. She is also a regular contributor to and former columnist for America magazine.
O’Donnell earned a bachelor’s degree at Penn State University, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She resides in Bronxville, New York.
For additional information about the poetry reading, please contact Matthew Nickel, associate professor of English, at [email protected] or 570-674-8021.
