Professor Publishes Award-Winning Poetry Chapbook

SHREVEPORT, La. (Centenary News Service) — Dr. David Havird, Professor of English, recently published a poetry chapbook, Penelope's Design: Fourteen Poems, a book of original poems.

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Penelope's Design

Winner of the 2009 Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize, Penelope's Design (Texas Review Press) is Havird's first published book of poetry. For many years, he has been published in major journals such as Agni, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, Southwest Review, The Yale Review, The Texas Review and online at Poetry Daily.

"Though most of the 14 poems are very recent, the selection spans my years at Centenary College," said Havird. "The unifying theme is 'the journey,' and it will interest the Centenary community to know that at least two of the poems come straight from experiences I had during a May module to England while two others take place on the Jack London Ranch in Sonoma Valley. The owner of the property is Milo Shepard and holds an honorary doctorate from the College."

Fellow poet and Centenary's 1999-2000 Corrington Award winner, Eleanor Wilner (author of Reversing the Spell and The Girl with Bees in Her Hair) notes, "the memories of 'a dream-disheveled child' in the Deep South unfold into the meditative travels of the literary man in these elegant, assured poems, riddled with starlight, richly enlivened with deep-dyed images of nature and art, and a meticulous ear for echoes both allusive and actual, in a language as sensual as it is referential."

Dr. David Havird

Havird grew up in Columbia, S.C, and studied at the University there under James Dickey. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and has been a member of the English faculty at Centenary College of Louisiana since 1988. In 1991 he originated the John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence, whose inaugural recipient was Eudora Welty. Dr. Havird is also an expert in poetry and poetry writing, Southern Literature, and 19th and 20th Century British Literature.

Penelope's Design can be purchased at amazon.com and available in the Centenary College bookstore.

About Centenary College of Louisiana

Centenary College is a private, four-year arts and sciences college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Founded in 1825, it is the oldest chartered liberal arts college west of the Mississippi River and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Centenary is one of 16 colleges and universities constituting the Associated Colleges of the South and has been recognized as "One of the Best 373 Colleges" by the Princeton Review and one of "America's Best Colleges" and one of "America's Best Private Colleges" by Forbes.com. In 2008 Centenary College celebrated 100 years in Shreveport and Bossier City.