CARL PHILLIPS GUEST OF PITT CONTEMPORARY WRITERS SERIES

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 25 -- Poet Carl Phillips, author of "From the Devotions," "Cortège," and "In the Blood," is the third writer to take the stage of the University of Pittsburgh's Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series on Thursday, Nov. 11, at 8:15 p.m. in the Frick Fine Arts Building, Room 125.

"From the Devotions," a finalist for the 1998 National Book Award, was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the best poetry collections for 1998. "Cortège" received recognition as a notable book of the year by National Book Critics Circle and was named one of the top five poetry collections in the country in the Boston Book Review in 1995. It also was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry in 1996. "In the Blood" was awarded the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize in 1992 and was named a 1993 Poetry Center Award finalist.

An associate professor of English and African and Afro-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Phillips also has taught at Harvard University, Boston University and the Iowa Writers Workshop. He has received awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress, and the Academy of American Poets.

Phillips' fourth book of poems, "Pastoral," is available in January 2000.

-30-

10/25/99/mgc