Just west of the Main Library is the English-Philosophy Building. From the time it was built in the late 1960s until 1997 it housed the Workshop. Its gray, utilitarian classrooms were the location of much beauty and heartbreak. Its small lounge on the third floor was the space where visiting writers for all those years endured the question and answer sessions that take place the morning after heralded readings. I have heard Robert Hass, Louise Glück, James Tate, James Merrill, John Ashbery, W. S. Merwin, Seamus Heaney, and Helen Vendler all answer questions in that room.

-Jan Weissmiller

“A Village Life” was printed by Visiting Printer Sara Langworthy in celebration of poet Louise Glück’s visit to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in April 2008. This poem has previously appeared in The New Yorker and is reprinted with permission of the author.

Link to original print

 

 

In her long career, the poet has taught at more than 15 universities,and she is currently at Yale. Her past positions include teaching at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop from 1976 to 1977. She’ll return to Iowa tonight as an Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor at 8p.m. in Van Allen Hall Lecture Room 2.