Poet John Yau reading at Hanes Art Gallery on April 5

Poet, writer, and critic John Yau will visit the Wake Forest University campus April 5-7 to give a poetry reading and participate in a panel discussion of poetics in the art and work of Liu Xia, whose exhibition METAPHORMS is currently installed in Hanes Art Gallery. 

John Yau Events: 

Poetry Reading

Tuesday, April 5, at 5 pm

Hanes Art Gallery (Scales Fine Arts Center)

“Confinement and Release”: A discussion of poetics in art and the work of Liu Xia 

Thursday, April 7, at 5 pm

Hanes Art Gallery (Scales Fine Arts Center)

Panel participants: John Yau, Laura Mullen, Paul Bright, and Thomas Frank

Yau’s visit is sponsored by the William R. Kenan Jr. Professorship in the Humanities, the Dillon Johnston Writers Reading Series, Hanes Art Gallery, and the Provost’s Fund for a Vibrant Campus. 

Yau has published books of poetry, fiction, and criticism. He has a new book of poems, Genghis Chan on Drums (Omnidawn, 2021), and two recent monographs, William Tillyer (Rizzoli, 2021) and Liu Xiaodong (Lund Humphries, 2021). He has also written monographs on A. R. Penck, Catherine Murphy, Thomas Nozkowski, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. In 1999, he started Black Square Editions, a small press devoted to poetry, fiction, translation, and criticism. He was the Arts Editor for the Brooklyn Rail (2007–2011) before he began writing regularly for Hyperallergic Weekend. He is a Professor of Critical Studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University).

A selection of John Yau’s poems are available from Poetry Foundation and The Academy of American Poets. We recommend: “A Painter’s Thoughts” (2020) and, from Further Adventures in Monochrome: “The Sunday Poem.”