St. Bonaventure University will host poet John Rybicki of Detroit for a reading on Thursday, March 30, at 5:30 p.m. in the Athletics Hall of Fame Room in the Reilly Center.

The event is free and open to the public; refreshments will be served at 5:15 p.m., prior to the reading.

Rybicki is the author of three published collections of poetry: “We Bed Down Into Water,” “Traveling at High Speeds,” and his third collection, “When All the World is Old,” written in response to the long illness and death of his wife, poet Julie Moulds.

His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, The American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review, as well as in The Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize anthologies. 

Rybicki, who teaches poetry writing in Detroit schools, has taught or guest lectured at Carnegie Mellon, Sarah Lawrence, Haverford College, and Kalamazoo College, and he did an 11-year residency at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. He was also featured in Time Magazine for Kids as an outstanding writing teacher.

While on campus, Rybicki will visit Dr. Joseph Hall’s Creative Writing – Poetry I class and Molly Snyder’s occupational therapy class. He will also visit Jamestown Community College for a class visit and to help judge a poetry competition.

St. Bonaventure is hosting Rybicki as a Lenna Visiting Professor. Programming during his stay is also sponsored by the Department of English and Occupational Therapy program at the university.

Rybicki will also do a reading at Olean Public Library, 134 N. Second St., Olean, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 29. That program is also free and open to the public.        

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. St. Bonaventure was named the #5 regional university value in the North in U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 college rankings edition.