Camille Dungy, professor of English at Colorado State University, will be honored at a Distinguished Author Reception April 16, 4 – 6 p.m., 108 Johnson Hall on the CSU campus. The reception is free and open to the public, and hosted by the School of Global Environmental Sustainability at CSU.

Camille T. Dungy is the author of Smith Blue, Suck on the Marrow, and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison. She edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, and co-edited the From the Fishouse poetry anthology. Her honors include an American Book Award, two Northern California Book Awards, a California Book Award silver medal, and a fellowship from the NEA. In the Fall of 2013, Dungy joined the faculty of the CSU English Department as a professor.

Dungy’s latest book, Smith Blue, offers a survival guide for the modern heart as Dungy takes on 21st-century questions of love, loss, and nature. From a myriad of lenses, these poems examine the human capacity for perseverance in the wake of heartbreak; the loss of beloved heroes and landscapes; and our determination in the face of everyday struggles.

The poems explore the dual nature of our presence on the planet, juxtaposing the devastation caused by human habitation with our own vulnerability to the capricious whims of our environment. In doing so, they reveal with fury and tenderness the countless ways in which we both create and are victims of catastrophe.

In the end, the book demonstrates how we are all intertwined, regardless of race or species, living and loving as best we are able in the shadows of both man-made and natural follies.

At the reading, copies of Dungy’s recent book, Smith Blue, will be available for purchase and refreshments will be served.  For more information, go to http://www.camilledungy.com/Poetry.htm