The Department of English Language and Literature aims to teach all students to write and speak well and to read skillfully, thoughtfully and with pleasure. We offer many courses that stress literary ...

Nancy Morejón is the best known and most widely translated woman poet of post-revolutionary Cuba. Born in 1944 in Havana to a militant dock worker and a trade-unionist seamstress, Morejón graduated ...

What determines when a piece of art is truly finished? We might think it’s clear when we see a painting on the wall of a museum, but for most artists, the moment of completion is anything but ...

Medieval Europe’s diverse regional cultures were balanced by a conscious attempt to create a unified view of the world that embraced religious and social ideals, Latin and vernacular literature, and ...

“Are you there?” asks Robert Hass, in the opening poem of The Apple Trees at Olema. “It’s summer. Are you smeared with the juice of cherries?” A poet known for his perceptive renderings of the natural ...

Danez Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead, a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award which circles their Black, queer, and HIV positive status. At once haunted, sensual, explosive and ...

Cornelius Eady is the author of seven books of poetry and two librettos. Praised for his approachable and simple language, Eady captures the emotional vulnerability of life in a clean, elegant style.

Natalie Diaz’s poetry is raw, rhythmic, and tender. The New York Times called her debut, When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012), an “ambitious… beautiful book.” Pima and Mojave, and an enrolled member of ...

Tobias Wray's poetry looks through both historical and personal lenses to examine queer identity, masculinity, and family relationships. Often engaging with LGBTQIA+ history, figures such as Alan ...

“We founded Smith Students for Food Justice to ask President McCartney to sign the Real Food Challenge Commitment.” I became involved in the national campaign Real Food Challenge (RFC) as a sophomore.

Jamaal May, described by the Boston Review as a “poet as machinist”, writes exquisite paths between the melancholy and the sublime. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, May explores themes of ...

Tarfia Faizullah “twines a seam where wounds are re-membered, fingers quivering, spooling and unspooling what we know of healing,” writes Khaled Mattawa, a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.