Beall Poetry Festival

March 20, 2023

The 29th Beall Poetry Festival kicks off March 29 for a three-day celebration featuring poetry readings, a lecture and a panel discussion. The festival fosters an appreciation of poetry and features acclaimed contemporary poets that come to Baylor’s campus to share their work and expertise.

Festival events begin on Wednesday with readings from the award winners of the student literary contest, which recognizes the best original work in poetry and fiction of Baylor undergraduate and graduate students. The Virginia Beall Ball Lecture in Contemporary Poetry will be delivered on Thursday, and events will conclude with a panel discussion featuring contemporary poets. Interspersed in these events will be readings by the invited participants.

Previous Beall Poetry Festival participants have included winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as several U.S. poet laureates. Invited participants for the 2023 Festival include:

  • Sumita Chakraborty, assistant professor of English and creative writing at North Carolina State University and author of poetry collection, Arrow (2020), and scholarly book, Grave Dangers: Poetics and the Ethics of Death in the Anthropocene;
  • A. Van Jordan, professor of English at Stanford University and author of five books of poetry, including the forthcoming collection When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again (2023);
  • Shane McCrae, author of several poetry collections, including Cain Named the Animal (2022), and associate professor in Columbia University’s M.F.A. Writing Program.

This year also boasts its inaugural Beall Visiting Poet, Lisa Russ Sparr. Sparr is the author of several books of poetry and is professor of English and creative writing at the University of Virginia. As the Beall Visiting Poet, Spaar conducts one-week visits to the Baylor campus each fall semester, to meet with Baylor students in both classroom and informal settings to encourage their interest and achievement in the writing and appreciation of poetry.

The festival is supported by the John A. and DeLouise McClelland Beall Endowed Fund, which was established in 1994 by Virginia Beall Ball to honor her parents and to encourage the writing and appreciation of poetry.

The festival is free and open to the public. Take part in the celebration by joining any of the festival’s events:

Wednesday, March 29

  • 3:30 p.m. Student Literary Award Ceremony, Treasure Room, Armstrong Browning Library
  • 5:30 p.m. Poetry Reading by Shane McCrae, Bennett Auditorium, Draper Academic Building  

Thursday, March 30

  • 3:30 p.m. Virginia Beall Ball Lecture in Contemporary Poetry by Sumita Chakraborty, Treasure Room, Armstrong Browning Library
  • 5:30 p.m. Poetry Reading by A. Van Jordan, Bennett Auditorium, Draper Academic Building

Friday, March 31

  • 3:30 p.m. Panel Discussion with all participants, Treasure Room, Armstrong Browning Library

For more information, visit https://beall.artsandsciences.baylor.edu/.