Category: Detroit Mercy
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If You Know Too Much of What You’re Going To Say, Then You’re Not Discovering Anything: A Virtual Poetry Reading with Joanna Fuhrman
On October 1, 2025, the University of Detroit Mercy hosted a virtual poetry reading featuring Joanna Fuhrman, poet and Assistant Teaching Professor in Creative Writing at Rutgers University. A graduate of the University of Washington’s MFA program, where she received both the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Joan Grayson Award, Fuhrman’s distinctive style…
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UDM’s New Black Box Theatre Hosts Its First Poetry Reading with Michigan Poet Laureate Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd
On Saturday, September 27th, the University of Detroit Mercy’s newly opened Black Box Theatre hosted its first poetry reading with Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd. A writer and academic, Dr. Boyd is Michigan’s third poet laureate and currently holds the position of Distinguished Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University. She has authored a…
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Magnetic Poetry Contest–2025 Winners!
For the second year, UDM’s English Department sponsored a Magnetic Poetry Contest on the 2nd floor of Briggs. Students, faculty, staff, passers-by, all were invited to try their hand at original compositions using the building blocks of poetry: words on the page locker! Read the winning student poems below. ______________________ 1st Place: Ashlee Jones, “Somewhere…
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Poet Cal Freeman Offers Reading on UDM’s Campus
Join Detroit Mercy’s Department of English as we welcome poet (and alum!) Cal Freeman to campus for a poetry reading and conversation about his latest book, The Weather of Our Names (Cornerstone Press, 2025). Books will be available for purchase. Thursday, October 23rd at 12:45 pm McNichols Campus Library, Bargman Room (2nd floor) Free and Open…
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Poet Joanna Furhman Offers Virtual Reading!
Join University of Detroit Mercy’s Department of English as we welcome Joanna Fuhrman to a free virtual reading, hosted by UDM’s Poet-in-Residence Stacy Gnall! Open to the community: Register here. JOANNA FUHRMAN is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Data Mind (Curbstone/Northwestern University Press, 2024) and To a New Era (Hanging Loose Press 2021). Fuhrman’s poems have…
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Michigan Poet Laureate Melba Joyce Boyd Comes to UDM!
As part of this year’s 2025 Homecoming festivities, Michigan’s new Poet Laureate Melba Joyce Boyd will offer a poetry reading in University of Detroit Mercy’s brand new Black Box Theatre! This event is free and open to the public. An official stop on the 2025 Michigan Poet Laureate Tour, the reading is sponsored by the…
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Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet Brandon Som Visits Detroit Mercy as part of Triptych Visiting Author Series
On Thursday, January 16th, Pulitzer Prize winner Brandon Som spoke with UDM students via Zoom after reading from his book Tripas, a collection of poems largely dedicated to Som’s maternal grandmother. In Tripas, Som uses images of circuitry to describe the long hours his grandmother spent on the factory line. The cover of the book…
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“We don’t separate kids by zip code” — A Grant Writing Experience with Arts & Scraps
During the Fall 2024 semester, students in Dr. Sigrid Streit’s ENL 4070: Grant Writing class collaborated with Arts & Scraps, a local Detroit non-profit, on a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) project. The students learned from Arts & Scraps about their work in the community. They then researched and wrote grant proposals the non-profit will use…
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Summer Reading Recommendations, 2024 Edition
Each summer, members of the English Department offer reading recommendations for the Detroit Mercy community. This year’s recommendations include books folks have loved and books they plan to read themselves this summer. Leave your own recommendation in the comments!
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Duality in Being: A Review of Farnaz Fatemi’s Triptych Reading
by Olivia Vitale (‘24) As both the school year and my time here at the university come to a close, I am grateful to have been able to attend the final event in the 2024 Triptych virtual author series. I found myself captivated by the work that Fatemi shared with those in attendance at the…
Between the Pages 