Poetry Reading at The Church With Philip Schultz

“There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.” — Gustave Flaubert

Philip Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, is currently penning a new book of poetry (title pending). On Saturday, November 16, at 5:30 p.m., the public is invited to a poetic evening, as Schultz reads new work from his latest endeavor, treating audiences to an advanced preview of the work, and revisits some of his older work. Schultz will also discuss his inspirations, provide insight into his process, and welcome the curious to learn more about the wordsmith.

One of the long-form poems included in the new collection, entitled “Something and Nothing,” is an Ekphrastic work that draws inspiration from Arshile Gorky’s painting “The Artist and His Mother” while also tilting the lens of introspection upon his own mother. “Mothers,” Schultz says, “the force that drives humanity’s engine. Women. Sacrifice.”

This reading is a complement to The Church’s new poetry-specific programming.

Philip Schultz won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for “Failure” (Harcourt 2007). His most recent collection, “Luxury” (W.W. Norton 2018) was preceded by “The Wherewithal,” a novel in verse (W.W. Norton 2014). He is also the author of two memoirs, “My Dyslexia” (W.W. Norton 2011) and “Comforts of the Abyss: The Art of Persona Writing” (W.W. Norton 2022). His six other poetry collections are “The God of Loneliness” (Harcourt 2010), “Living in the Past” (Harcourt 2004), “The Holy Worm of Praise” (Harcourt 2002), the chapbook “My Guardian Angel Stein” (1986), “Deep Within the Ravine” (Viking 1984, recipient of The Academy of American Poets’ Lamont Prize) and “Like Wings” (Viking 1978, winner of an American Academy & Institute of Arts and Letters Award as well as a National Book Award nomination).

Shultz’s work has been published in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New Republic, Five Points, The Gettysburg Review, The Paris Review, The Southern Review and Slate, among other magazines, and he is the recipient of a 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry. He has also received poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Fulbright scholarship, as well as the Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine.

Tickets to the reading are $15 (members $10) at thechurchsagharbor.org. The Church is at 48 Madison Street in Sag Harbor.