Southern Quarterly features Robert Morgan in special issue

The spring 2010 issue of The Southern Quarterly honors the work of renowned writer and Kappa Alpha Professor of English Robert Morgan. The special issue (Vol. 47, No. 3) features 12 new poems by Morgan, an excerpt from his novel-in-progress, "Appalachian Trail," and critical essays celebrating his work.

Jesse Graves, M.F.A. '00, edited the issue and writes in his introduction: "[Morgan] has become not only one of the most celebrated writers from the Appalachian region, but he must now be considered among the foremost of American writers."

Contributors to the issue also include Jake York, M.F.A. '97, Ph.D. '00, and professor of English Roger Gilbert, who analyzes the "complementary poetics" of Morgan and the late A.R. Ammons, a fellow Cornell faculty member and North Carolina native.

Morgan has taught at Cornell since 1971. He published his first volume of poetry more than 40 years ago. Since then, he has published numerous poetry collections; eight works of fiction, including the Oprah Book Club selection "Gap Creek"; a volume of essays and interviews; and a biography of Daniel Boone. Morgan received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2007.

The Southern Quarterly is an interdisciplinary journal of Southern culture and the arts in the South, published independently since 1962 at the University of Southern Mississippi. Writers featured in previous special issues of SQ have included Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Walker Percy, Richard Wright, Harry Crews, Zora Neale Hurston and Cormac McCarthy.

For information, visit http://www.usm.edu/soq/.

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