The fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina will be commemorated at the College of Saint Elizabeth on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, with the appearance of poet Patricia Smith whose recent collection, Blood Dazzler, chronicles the human, emotional, and physical toll exacted by that catastrophe. The book was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and was one of the National Public Radio’s (NPR) Top Books of 2008. Smith will read from this latest book along with her other works and will follow with a book signing. The event, which will take place at 7 p.m.in the Dolan Performance Hall in Annunciation Center on campus, is free and open to the public.

Smith’s appearance is sponsored by the CSE Poets and Writers Fund and the Lectures and Concerts Committee. For more information, call 973-290-4413.

In a review, South Carolina poet laureate Marjory Wentworth wrote, “Blood Dazzler is the narrative of a shameful tragedy, but it is lyrical and beautiful, like a hymn we want to sing over and over until it lives in our collective memory.”

Smith’s previous book, Teahouse of the Almighty, was a National Poetry Series selection and winner of the first Hurston/Wright Award in Poetry. Her other poetry books are Close to Death, Life According to Motown, and Big Towns, Big Talk. Her work has been published in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, and other literary journals/anthologies, and performed around the world, including Carnegie Hall and the Sorbonne in Paris.

Smith is a winner of four National Poetry Slam individual championships, the most in the competition’s history. She has been featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. She currently teaches in the Stonecoast Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Southern Maine and is a professor of creative writing at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island.

Sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, Convent Station, New Jersey, the College of Saint Elizabeth enrolls more than 2,100 full- and part-time students in 25 undergraduate, 10 graduate and one doctoral degree programs. For information on other activities or programs, visit the College of Saint Elizabeth web site at www.cse.edu.