Eagle Pond Authors’ Series: Jeff Oaks

Eagle Pond Authors Series Welcomes Poet Jeff Oaks After a two-year hiatus, the Eagle Pond Authors Series returns to the Silver Center at Plymouth State University on March 17, with a 7:00PM reading and book-signing by poet, essayist and painter Jeff Oaks. Oaks is the author of the poetry collections The Things (2022) and Little What (2019), both from Lily Poetry Review Books.

Written in the wake of the poet’s mother’s Stage 4 cancer diagnosis, The Things tackles not only the keen anticipation of grief and loss but also its arrival and aftermath. These lyrical and searingly direct poems navigate through the empty spaces left behind by death and chart a path from sorrow back into the physical world. Oaks captures and honors his mother’s irrepressible personality while recounting his own process of inheriting and letting go of her “things.”

Oaks is also the author of several chapbooks of poetry, including Mistakes with Strangers (2014) and Shift (2010) from Seven Kitchens Press. The recipient of three Pennsylvania Council of the Arts fellowships, he has published poems in numerous journals, including Field, Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Superstition Review, and Tupelo Quarterly. His work appears in the anthologies My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them and Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction. He teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Eagle Pond Authors Series was founded in 1998 by Hall and then Director of the Silver Center for the Arts Diane Alexander Jeffrey ’97. Hall served as co-curator until his death in 2018 and the series continues under the guidance of Plymouth State University Professor Liz Ahl. The series brings nationally known poets to central New Hampshire and is a memorable and meaningful part of the state’s arts and cultural landscape. Generous support from an anonymous donor helps keep this series free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale at the reading from the Plymouth State University Bookstore; a book signing will follow the reading, which is free and open to the public.

Properly worn masks are required at all times in the Silver Center. Readings take place in the Silver Center’s Smith Recital Hall at 7:00PM. After Oaks, the next poet will be Susan Lilley on Tuesday, April 26, 2022. For more information, please contact the Silver Center for the Arts.