Jean Valentine will read on Monday, April 1, at 4 p.m. in Winants Auditorium of Graves Hall. Gary Pak will read on Tuesday, April 2, at 4 p.m. in the Fried-Hemenway Auditorium of the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication. Mark Hillringhouse will read on Thursday, April 11, at 7 p.m. in Winants Auditorium of Graves Hall. Edward Hirsch will read on Thursday, April 18, at 7 p.m. at the Knickerbocker Theatre.  The events will conclude with a reading by Hope seniors on Friday, April 19, at 4 p.m. in the Fried-Hemenway Auditorium of the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication.

The public is invited to all of the readings.  Admission is free.

Jean Valentine won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, “Dream Barker,” in 1965. Her 11th book of poetry is “Break the Glass” (Copper Canyon Press, 2010). “Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965–2003” was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry. The recipient of the 2009 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, Valentine has taught at Sarah Lawrence, New York University and Columbia.

Gary Pak is a third-generation Korean American whose grandparents, fled Korea during World War II. Besides being published in numerous anthologies, magazines and literary journals, he is the author of “The Watcher of Waipuna and Other Stories” (Bamboo Ridge Press, 1992), “A Ricepaper Airplane” (University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), “Children of a Fireland” (UH Press, 2004), and “Language of the Geckos and Other Stories” (University of Washington Press, 2005). Also forthcoming is a creative nonfiction book, “Brothers Under the Same Sky.” He co-edited “Yobo: Korean American Writing in Hawai‘i” (Bamboo Ridge Press, 2003).

Mark Hillringhouse’s writing and photography have appeared in the “American Poetry Review,” “The New York Times,” “New Jersey Monthly,” “View Camera,” “Photo-Eye” and elsewhere. Winner of the Chester H. Jones Poetry Competition and two Pushcart Prizes, he is the recipient of several poetry fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He is a member of the National Book Critics’ Circle and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation’s Poetry Program. He writes about photography and is an award-winning photographer. He recently published a series of his black and white portraits of the New York School poets along with an accompanying essay, and has recently published a photographic essay on the Passaic River.

Edward Hirsch will be reading through the Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series.  His first collection of poems, “For the Sleepwalkers,” was published in 1981 and went on to receive the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University. His second collection, “Wild Gratitude (1986),” received the National Book Critics Circle Award. Since then, he has published several books of poems, most recently “Special Orders (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008)”; “Lay Back the Darkness (2003)”; “On Love (1998)”; “Earthly Measures (1994)”; and “The Night Parade (1989).” He is also the author of the prose volumes “The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration (Harcourt, 2002),” “Responsive Reading (1999),” and the national bestseller “How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999).”

The reading by Hope seniors is an annual event that showcases the accomplishments of graduating seniors and is a highlight of the semester, drawing faculty, students, friends, and family alike. The students’ work presented is a culmination of four years of rigorous study in the art of writing.

Graves Hall is located at 263 College Ave., between 10th and 12th streets.  The Knickerbocker Theatre is located in downtown Holland at 86 E. Eighth St.  The Martha Miller Center for Global Communication is located at 257 Columbia Ave., at the corner of Columbia Avenue and 10th Street.

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