Price Caldwell Visiting Writers Series brings award-winning poet to MSU

Contact: Sarah Nicholas

Portrait of Derrick Harriell
Derrick Harriell (Photo submitted)

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Acclaimed poet Derrick Harriell is the featured fall guest next Wednesday [Sept. 28] for Mississippi State’s Price Caldwell Visiting Writers Series.

Harriell will be reading from his new collection of poems “Come Kingdom” (LSU Press, 2022). Free to all, Harriell’s presentation begins at 5:30 p.m. in Mitchell Memorial Library’s John Grisham Room. A question-and-answer session and book signing will follow.

The Ottilie Schillig Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi, Harriell’s previous collections of poems include “Stripper in Wonderland” (LSU Press, 2017), “Cotton” (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2010) and “Ropes” (Aquarius Press, 2013), winner of the 2014 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Book Award.

During his MSU visit, Harriell will speak with students in the Department of English Craft of Poetry class, taught by MSU Assistant Professor Saddiq Dzukogi.

The Price Caldwell Visiting Writers Series was established through an endowment from Alice Carol Caldwell and family as a memorial to her late husband, an MSU professor of English who died in 2015. Caldwell was the founder and director of the university’s creative writing program, and he served as president and vice president of the Southern Literary Festival organization.

For additional information about Harriell’s campus visit and reading, contact Professor Becky Hagenston at bhagenston@english.msstate.edu.

Part of MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English is online at www.english.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.