Poet Mary Leader is first fall speaker in River City Writers Series ...

In 2006, while she was teaching at the University of Memphis, Mary Leader was Poet of the Month on poetrynet.org. In the profile about her work on the site, she said she began writing poetry while she was in the middle of a career as a lawyer -- she had been assistant attorney general of Oklahoma -- and that her "first real poem" was called "Probate."

Leader, who also had been a referee for the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, left the law to get her Ph.D. in literature at Brandeis University. Before she began teaching at U of M, she taught at Emory University and Louisiana State University. She returns to Memphis this week as the first speaker in the fall 2012 River City Writers Series at U of M.

The transition from lawyer to poet apparently was a natural one for Leader. A review by one of her U of M poetry workshop students on Rate My Professors said: "Leader is awesome. If you are a real poet and want to hone your craft, then she's the one to take."

She will speak at the University Center at 8 p.m. Tuesday. The event is free and open to the public. Other speakers scheduled in the series are Lee K. Abbott on Oct. 30, and Lee Smith on Feb. 21.

Leader currently teaches creative writing at Purdue University. Her first book of poems, "Red Signature," won the National Poetry Series in 1996.

A review of her work in The New York Times said, "Leader artfully articulates one woman's struggle to unite intellect and emotion." A New Yorker review said Leader's writing reflects "her own quite remarkable sensibility, which is one of the most self-possessed in contemporary poetry."

For more information about Leader's talk, email creativewriting@memphis.edu, or call 901-678-2651.

Source: http://blogs.commercialappeal.com/the_shelf_life/2012/09/poet-mary-leader-is-first-fall-speaker-in-river-city-writers-series.html

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