Hampden-Sydney, VA – On Monday, January 25, Hampden-Sydney College celebrates the 35th edition of The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, a respected journal in the world of poetry, with “Poetry in Winter.”   Students and faculty will read favorite selections from the current issue of the Poetry Review.

The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review began to take shape in 1973 when poets Michael Egan and Tom O’Grady found fonts of lead type and printing blocks in an old horse barn in rural Maryland and bought them for a few dollars from the owner.  They decided to set poems themselves, letter by letter—and perhaps even make their own paper—to publish limited edition chapbooks of poetry.  The first edition was printed in 1975.  In 1977 the poets received grants from the Virginia Arts Commission and won the National Endowment for the Arts Editors’ Prize.

In 2008 the Poetry Review reached a turning point in its history when Tom O’Grady, founding editor, retired from the faculty of the College.  A new editor, Nathaniel Perry, took over in the fall of 2008.  The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review is the second longest continuous-run poetry journal in the United States.  It is one of only about a dozen magazines nationwide devoted solely to poetry.  The magazine has published a long list of the world’s distinguished poets:

Nobel laureates Jaroslav Seifert and Roald Hoffman

Pulitzer prizewinners W.D. Snodgrass, Kenneth Rexroth, Peter Viereck, Louis Simpson, Charles Simic, and Henry Taylor

National Book Award winners Robert Bly, A. R. Ammons, and William Stafford

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Mark Strand

Paris Review winner Richard Bentley

American Book Award winner May Sarton

Theodore Weiss, Marge Piercy, Denise Levertov, William Dickey, William Styron, Willie Morris, and others.

Forty-three university libraries nationwide subscribe to the Poetry Review, including Harvard, Yale, Brown, Cornell, Georgetown, Howard, Vanderbilt, UVA, UNC, and the University of Iowa.

“Poetry in Winter” readings will begin at 5 PM in the Bortz Library, 4th Floor.  The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, 35th edition, will be available for purchase at special discount.  The community is welcome.

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