Poet Kenneth McClane, the W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature at Cornell, will reflect on family and pay tribute to his parents as part of the 2008 Sage Chapel Vespers Africana Sunday Series, Feb. 17, at 4 p.m.

Each month, an Africana Sunday service addresses issues in the African and African-American communities. Services include readings, a meditation and diverse musical offerings.

"Musicals: A Homage to My Parents" incorporates McClane's meditation, readings and music by tenor Evan Graham with Shane Levesque on piano and organ. The hour will be followed by conversation and a reception in the chapel.

McClane, a Stephen H. Weiss presidential fellow at Cornell, has taught English and creative writing at the university for 31 years. He is author of seven poetry collections, including "Out Beyond the Bay," "Moons and Low Times," "At Winter's End" and "A Tree Beyond Telling: Poems Selected and New."

Sage Chapel Vespers is a program of spoken word, music and other art forms that celebrate humanistic and spiritual aspects of the university's intellectual pursuits organized around monthly themes: "Creativity and Transcendence" (February), "Science and Spirituality" (March) and "Belief and Public Life" (April).

Spring 2008 speakers include Cornell professors Pete Wetherbee, Bob Fay, Kenneth Reardon and Roald Hoffmann, Cornell Vice Provost Michele Moody-Adams, Provost Biddy Martin, CNN reporter and author Roland S. Martin, University of Maryland physics professor Sylvester J. Gates Jr. and the Rev. Brian Jordan of the St. Francis Immigration Center in Manhattan.

For more information visit http://www.curw.cornell.edu/sage.html or contact Roberta Moudry at (607) 272-4068 or RMM5@cornell.edu.