Poet Marie Howe to give ISM's annual Schwebel Lecture

The Institute of Sacred Music welcomed former Poet Laureate of New York, Marie Howe, Thursday, March 30 as she gives a talk and poetry reading for the annual Lana Schwebel Memorial Lecture. Author of four volumes of poetry, Howe explored questions of vital spiritual importance, such as what is the difference between the self and the soul? Or the secular and the sacred? Where is the kingdom of heaven? And how does one live in Ordinary Time? Her most recent volume of poetry is Magdalene: Poems (WW Norton, 2017).

Howe is currently the poet in residence at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She has been a fellow at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, a recipient of NEA and Guggenheim fellowships, and the Academy of American Poets fellowship. She served as the Poet Laureate of New York State from 2012-2014.

The conversation was facilitated by Dr. David Mahan, executive director of the Rivendell Institute at Yale, co-director of the Rivendell Center for Theology and the Arts, and lecturer in Religion and Literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Dr. Mahan’s work focuses on the relationship between works of the literary imagination and the tasks of Christian theology. He teaches classes that offer theological readings of 20th-21st century fiction and poetry, and Christian poetics.