A series readings and interviews founded in 1967 at the State University of New York College at Brockport by Gregory FitzGerald, then as Associate Professor in the English Department. FitzGerald, a poet and fiction writer himself, was the first faculty member to teach a creative writing course.

Subsequent directors of the Forum include William Heyen

William Heyen

William Helmuth Heyen is an American poet, editor, and literary critic. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Suffolk County...

, A. Poulin, Jr., Peter Marchant

Peter Marchant

Peter Marchant was a Belgian Franciscan theologian, who became involved in Irish affairs.-Life:...

, Rodney Parshall, and Stan Rubin. The current co-directors are poet Ralph Black and fiction writer Anne Panning

Anne Panning

Anne Panning is an award winning writer of both fiction and nonfiction. She teaches English at State University of New York at Brockport and co-directs the Brockport Writers Forum.-Biography:...

.

Over 200 authors have appeared at the Forum since its inception, including Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...

, Robert Bly

Robert Bly

Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...

, James Dickey

James Dickey

James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...

, Galway Kinnell

Galway Kinnell

Galway Kinnell is an American poet. He was Poet Laureate of Vermont from 1989 to 1993. An admitted follower of Walt Whitman, Kinnell rejects the idea of seeking fulfillment by escaping into the imaginary world. His best-loved and most anthologized poems are "St...

, John Berryman

John Berryman

John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...

, W.S. Merwin, W.D. Snodgrass, Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...

, Howard Nemerov

Howard Nemerov

Howard Nemerov was an American poet. He was twice appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1963 to 1964, and again from 1988 to 1990. He received the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Bollingen Prize for The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov...

, Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...

, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...

, Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

, James Wright

James Wright (poet)

James Arlington Wright was an American poet.Wright first emerged on the literary scene in 1956 with The Green Wall, a collection of formalist verse that was awarded the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Prize. But by the early 1960s, Wright, increasingly influenced by the Spanish language...

, Richard Wilbur

Richard Wilbur

Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....

, Anne Waldman

Anne Waldman

Anne Waldman is an American poet.Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the “Outrider” experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activist....

, Billy Collins

Billy Collins

Billy Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida...

. Nearly all of the readings have been recorded, and all of the intereviews have been preserved on video, providing an invaluable educational resource.

The Forum also conducted a Summer Writer's Workshop for several years during the 1980s, and has also sponsored residencies, several symposia, and an annual Poetry Prize competition. It continues to offer the Art of Fact Award. A number of international authors have come to the Forum, including Bosnian writer Asmir Kujovic, Russian poet Andrei Voznesensky, Moroccan fiction writer Leila Abouzeid, and South African novelist Nadine Gordimer.

The presence of the Forum on the Brockport campus had a significant impact on the direction of the English Department at both the undergraduate and graduate level. A Master of Arts in English with a creative writing dissertation was introduced in 1971, attracting many students who went on to establish national and international reputations in writing. Those who studied creative writing at Brockport include poet Li-Young Lee

Li-Young Lee

Li-Young Lee is an American poet. He was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents. His maternal grandfather was Yuan Shikai, China's first Republican President, who attempted to make himself emperor...

, poet and editor Michael Waters, novelist and non-fiction writer James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere , a history of American suburbia and urban development, and the more recent The Long Emergency , where he argues that declining oil production is likely...

, poet and publisher Antonio Vallone, and poet, editor and publisher Frank Judge

Frank Judge

Frank Judge is an American poet, publisher, translator, journalist, film critic, teacher, and arts administrator.His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including New Directions, The Greenfield Review, The New Orleans Review, The Belingham Review, , , Bitterroot, Invisible City, Blank...

, who also served as Associate Director of the Forum during FitzGerald's final tenure as director during the 1979-80 academic year.

Sources

• The information in this entry is based on SUNY Brockport English Department brochures, program notes, college catalogues, the Forum website, and other documents, as well as discussions with the former faculty members who served as directors of the Forum.