Poet and Author Herbert Woodward Martin at Aquinas College

The Aquinas College Contemporary Writers Series will host Herbert Woodward Martin on Tuesday, April l9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Wege Center Ballroom at Aquinas College.  Herbert Woodward Martin has a special connection with Grand Rapids. He taught at Aquinas from 1967-1970 and was also the college's poet-in-residence. In addition to publishing eight books of poetry, Martin has edited major collections on Paul Laurence Dunbar and expanded his creative talents by exploring the intersection of poetry and music. Each year Martin speaks about Paul Laurence Dunbar for the Humanities Program at Aquinas.

In recent years, he has recorded the narration for William Grant Still's Symphony No. 1: The African American with The Dayton Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. He has written the libretti for a new American opera, a Cantata with Adolphus Hailstork, another American Opera, and a Magnificat with Philip Carl Magnuson.

Martin has also supplied the texts for several song cycles with other composers. His many awards for his work include: four Honorary Doctorate Degrees; a Fulbright Scholarship to Hungary (1990-91); the Ohio Humanities Council Bjornson Award (1996); the Mellen Prize for Narrative Poetry for The Log of the Vigilante (1999); and the Mark Twain Award from The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature (2002). 

His poetry collections include:

New York The Nine Million (1967), The Persistence of the Flesh (1976), The Forms of Silence (1980), Galileo's Suns (1999), The Log of the Vigilante (2000), Escape to the Promised Land (2005), Inscribing My Name: Selected Poems (2007)