J. David Cummings to Read at Ashland University

March 9, 2015

J. David Cummings to Read at Ashland University

Ashland Poetry Press author J. David Cummings will be part of the Ashland University English Department's Spring Reading Series. He will read selections from his 2014 collection Tancho, winner of the 2013 Snyder Memorial Prize as chosen by final judge Alice Ostriker. Cummings will read on Monday, March 23 at 4:00 p.m. in the Ronk Lecture Hall (Dwight Schar Building). The event is free and open to the public. 

Educated at the Pennsylvania State University, J. David Cummings was employed as a theoretical physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for more than 10 years. He resigned his position in 1973 out of the conviction that he could no longer work in nuclear weapons development, and never returned to defense work or physics research.

In the early ’90s he traveled to Japan, which afforded him the opportunity to visit the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park. Later, meditating on his experience at the Park and in response to the controversy over a planned Smithsonian Institution exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he began the nearly two-decade project of writing the poems that culminated in his book titled “Tancho.”

Cummings’s education as a poet has been informed by repeated workshop participation in the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Napa Valley Writers Conference and the New York State Summer Writing Institute over the last 25 years. His initial experience at the SVCW in 1988 was pivotal to his commitment to the art and craft of poetry. His work has been published by Poetry Flash, Bellowing Ark, The Sand Hill Review, Slapering Hol Press, and the Winning Writers War Poetry Contest. He lives with his wife Christine, also a poet, in Menlo Park, Calif.

Other authors in this year's spring reading series are: 

March 30, 2015 - Tom Montgomery Fate, author of five books of nonfiction, including “Beyond the White Noise,” a collection of essays; “Steady and Trembling,” a spiritual memoir; and “Cabin Fever,” a nature memoir.

April 20, 2015 - Michelle Herman, the author of the novels “Missing” and “Dog,” the novella collection “A New and Glorious Life,” three collections of essays – “The Middle of Everything,” “Stories We Tell Ourselves,” and “Like A Song” -- and a book for children, “A Girl's Guide to Life.” 

All three readings begin at 4:00 p.m. in the Ronk Lecture Hall (Dwight Schar Building)

For more information, contact Kari Lindecamp in the English Department, 419.289.5110 or klindeca@ashland.edu

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