Artist-in-Residence Qunicy Troupe Gives Public Reading
The English Department is pleased to welcome our new Class of 1939 Artist in Residence, the distinguished poet and nonfiction writer Quincy Troupe. He will teach an advanced poetry seminar this spring in the Creative Writing Program, “The Architecture of Language,” which will “explore the linkages between metaphor, rhythm, how language is structured, and how it can be utilized in a visual, musical manner to energize and give rise to an individual voice.”
He will also present a free public reading of his work on February 12, 2014, at 8 p.m. in the Tucker Theater on the William and Mary campus. Reception and book signing to follow. For further information, contact Prof. Schoenberger at njscho@wm.edu.
Troupe is the award-winning author of ten books of poetry, three children’s books, and six works of nonfiction, including two American Book Award winners (for Snake-Back Solos: Selected Poems and Miles: The Autobiography of Miles Davis, soon to be a feature film). He’s also the author of Earl the Pearl: My Story, a memoir of Earl Monroe, the NY Knicks basketball star, and co-author with Chris Gadner of The Pursuit of Happyness, a New York Times bestseller for over 40 weeks and the basis of the 2006 motion picture starring Will Smith.
A professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, Troupe has taught writing workshops and American and third-world-literature courses at many universities, including Columbia, University of Ghana at Legon, and the Universities of California at Berkeley. He’s also the editor of Black Renaissance Noire, a literary journal of the Institue of Africana Studies at New York University.
“I come out of St. Louis, the black culture there and the music there. I grew up in the church. I was a basketball player. I’m a poet. That’s the way I approach myself.” -- Quincy Troupe
