News: Poet Eva Hooker visits Benedictine as part of Visiting Scholar in Catholic Thought series

2/21/08 | Benedictine University welcomed poet, educator, and scholar Eva Hooker, C.S.C., to campus this week as part of its Visiting Scholar in Catholic Thought series.

During her visit, Hooker presented two lectures: “What Soul Says: Invite Dark Night to Supper” and “Notes for Survival in the Wilderness,” a dazzling meditation on the nature and import of lyric poetry that included generous excerpts from her own body of work.

Hooker is a professor of English and writer-in-residence at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, IN, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1963. She earned a master’s in English from Notre Dame in 1965 and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1976. She has taught English Literature for more than 25 years.

Hooker’s poems have appeared in a number of publications including The Harvard Review, The Massachusetts Review, Shenandoah, and the Vermont Literary Review. Her book, Notes for Survival in the Wilderness, was a finalist for the Center for Book Arts Award (N.Y.). Another book, The Winter Keeper, was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award in poetry.

The Visiting Scholar in Catholic Thought series features distinguished scholars who work within the Catholic intellectual tradition. The theme of the spring 2008 lectures was “Literature and the Catholic Imagination.”