August 3, 2016
Centenary University Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, Emilia Phillips, is scheduled to present at the Dodge Poetry Festival in October at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
“The Dodge Poetry Festival has been one of my dreams,” says Professor Phillips. “Because of its engagement of high school and college students, as well as the general public, I think of it as one of the most diverse and important festivals in the country. It is an honor to be able to share my work there.”
The Dodge Poetry Festival is widely acknowledged as the largest poetry event in North America, representing the most eminent poets from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The four-day celebrations of poetry have been called “poetry heaven” by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, “a new Woodstock” by the Christian Science Monitor and simply “Wordstock” by the New York Times.
The Festival, held in even-numbered years since 1986, has drawn a combined audience of approximately 140,000 attendees from 42 states, including 17,000 high school teachers and 42,000 high school students who attended without charge and traveled from as far away as Florida, Maine, Minnesota and California. On each of these four Fall days, ten or more separate stages offer events simultaneously for audiences of 100 to 2,000 people. Originally held in Waterloo Village, the Festival found a new home in Newark’s Downtown Arts District in 2010.
Emilia Phillips is the author of two poetry collections from the University of Akron Press, Signaletics (2013) and Groundspeed (2016), and three chapbooks, most recently Beneath the Ice Fish Like Souls Look Alike (Bull City Press, 2015). Her poems and lyric essays appear in Agni, Beloit Poetry Journal, Blackbird, Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Green Mountains Review, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, The Kenyon Review, Narrative, New England Review, Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day (Academy of American Poets), Poetry, StoryQuarterly, Third Coast, Verse Daily, Waxwing, West Branch Wired, and elsewhere. She received StoryQuarterly’s 2015 Nonfiction Prize, judged by Leslie Jamison, and The Journal’s 2012 Poetry Prize, judged by G.C. Waldrep, as well as the 2013–2014 Emerging Writer Lectureship from Gettysburg College and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, U.S. Poets in Mexico, and Vermont Studio Center.
“I am so pleased that Professor Phillips received an invitation to read at the Dodge Poetry Festival,” says Dr. Sharon Decker, Associate Professor of English and Chair of the English and Foreign Languages Department. “She is such a talented poet and writer and is so passionate about this field of study. The Centenary community is quite proud to call her one of our own.”
Founded in 1867 by the Newark Conference of the United Methodist Church, Centenary University’s academic program integrates a solid liberal arts foundation with a strong career orientation. This mix is designed to provide an educational experience that prepares students to succeed in the increasingly global and interdependent world.
Centenary University’s main campus is located in Hackettstown, N.J., with its equestrian facility in Washington Township (Morris County). The Centenary School of Professional Studies offers degree programs in two locations: Parsippany and Edison, and at corporate sites throughout New Jersey. The School of International Programs recruits international students for study at Centenary and Centenary students for study abroad.