Friends, family and students gathered Tuesday for the 10th annual Milton Kessler Distinguished Poetry Reader Series, a program that commemorates the life of a professor through a variety of poetry readings.
The event has featured numerous guest poets throughout its duration, most of them former students of Kessler’s. This year, however, David Lehman was chosen as the poet who would be entertaining the crowd.
Lehman read around 20 selected poems from a number of his books, including selections from ‘When a Woman Loves a Man’ and ‘Yeshiva Boys.’
Lehman, making his debut performance in Binghamton University, felt he had a rather unique connection with the audience.
‘When you read poems to the audience, the reads become very real to you,’ Lehman said.
Christine Gelineau, associate director of creative writing in the English department, was committed to setting up this event and ensuring that Lehman was the scheduled poet, and she said she was very pleased with the outcome.
‘I was looking forward to the opportunity for our students and faculty and for members of the community to have an opportunity to listen to and to meet with an influential voice for contemporary American poetry,’ Gelineau said. ‘It was a very successful evening.’
Lehman offered advice to aspiring poets.
‘Poetry is something you do out of love, because no one is going to pay you to write poetry ‘ but the things that you do out of love will sustain themselves,’ he said. ‘Something you really love is going to pay you back.’
Kessler was a professor at BU who was influential in establishing Binghamton’s creative writing program. He was also an internationally recognized poet.
Kessler died of a heart condition on April 17, 2000, and in an effort to do something to commemorate his life, Kessler’s family and colleagues established the event in his name.