Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney and former Nobel Laureate and BU Professor Robert Pinsky will join other poets and authors to read selections of their work Wednesday night to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of AGNI Magazine, a literary journal affiliated with Boston University’s creative writing program.
Fourteen authors, also including Gail Mazur and Pulitzer Prize-winner Lloyd Schwartz, have been scheduled to read at 8 p.m. in Metcalf Hall on the second floor of the George Sherman Union.
AGNI Magazine will also promote a new poetry anthology containing works by the 243 poets who have been featured in the publication’s history, according to AGNI Magazine Managing Editor Eric Grunwald.
The night will also mark the end of an era, as Askold Melnyczuk, the founder of AGNI, will announce his retirement as editor — a position he has held since 1972.
Melnyczuk, who founded the publication in high school and has watched it evolve from an underground newspaper into an award-winning literary magazine, will be accepting the position of Creative Writing Director at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Sven Birkerts, a college literature instructor and author, will become the new editor and will also speak Wednesday night, Grunwald said.
Because of increasing state budget cutbacks to cultural and artistic programs, a cocktail party fundraiser will precede the reading. Grunwald said AGNI’s state grant was slashed by 70 percent last year.
“With a budget crisis at BU and around the state, we now have to turn to fundraising in a big way to keep the magazine going,” he said.
Grunwald explained fundraising has become vital to the survival of AGNI Magazine because of the downsizing of grants awarded through the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state program designed to foster artistic expression.
Nevertheless, AGNI said they would work to showcase a diverse and reputable collection of fiction, poetry, essays and reviews, according to Grunwald.
“The magazine focuses on readers who want the best new literature by both established and up-and-coming writers,” he said.
Tickets for the reading will cost $5 with a BU ID and $15 for non-students.
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