“New snow as far as I can see/ Wipes clear the slate for poetry.”
Entitled “Winter’s Blessing,” this couplet is featured in award-winning author Sally A. Kitt Chappell’s newest edition of poetry SHARDS: Selected Poems (2011). In this poem, we are reminded how inclement winter weather provides opportunities for creative expression. Spring’s blessing, however, is in the forthcoming opportunity to sit back and hear Chappell read her poems at a reading and reception on May 10 at the John T. Richardson Library, Room 115, from 5:30-6:30 PM.
Born under a Kansas sky, SHARDS draws on Chappell’s experience of writing poetry throughout all stages of her life, including her many years as a professor of architectural history at DePaul University (1968-1994). After a career of teaching at DePaul, Chappell resumed her career as a free lance writer and wrote Chicago’s Urban Nature: A Guide to the City’s Architecture and Landscape (2007) as well as Words Work(2009), which features poems, travel essays, and autobiographical stories that explore her journey as a genre-crossing writer, with both humor and grace. “When I entered Mills College in the fall of 1946,” she writes, “I failed the ‘College Level Writing Test.’ Young women who failed this test had to take ‘Dumbbell English’until they passed the test. I was there five days a week for months, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
DePaul University Libraries is thrilled to welcome back emerita professor Sally A. Kitt Chappell; on May 10, we invite you to wipe clear your slate for poetry.
This event is co-sponsored by DePaul University Libraries, the DePaul Art Museum, DePaul’s History of Art and Architecture Department, and the DePaul Emeritus Society. For further information, please contact Brent Nunn, Library Outreach Services Coordinator.