Assistant Professor of English Meg Day has been named the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s poet-in-residence for 2024 — a first for NC State and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Day was selected for the residency by a panel of five, comprising arts administrators, poets, artists and novelists. Day is the Manhattan-based museum’s third poet-in-residence since the 2021 start of the program, a collaboration between the museum and the Academy of American Poets.
Of being selected, Day said: “I am honored to be welcomed as the third poet-in-residence at the Guggenheim and grateful for the opportunity to serve the public as a poet in this capacity. I spent last week at the museum familiarizing myself with the architecture of the building and meeting the educational programming team, the access team, and the incredible gallery guides. I’m excited to bring poetry and American Sign Language into the museum in a new way, and I can’t wait to share more about what we have planned. “
A poet and essayist, Day joined the Department of English in 2022 as a professor in the areas of creating writing (poetry) and literature. Day is the author of Last Psalm at Sea Level, which received the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award. Day is also the winner of an Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry.
Day’s work explores gender and disability, specifically transgender identity and Deafness, and can be found in Best American Poetry, The New York Times, Poetry Magazine and elsewhere.
As poet-in-residence, Day will present All Ears, a project that highlights Deaf poetry as visual art. To that end, the project will include readings by Deaf poets, responses in American Sign Language to works of art in the museum, and activations that capture the echoes, vibrations and movement of the museum’s architecture, according to information from the museum.
The aim of the project is threefold: feature Deaf poets as visual artists by working with them in new ways; familiarize the hearing public with American Sign Language and Deaf sonics; and encourage museumgoers to view language as visual as much as audible.
Day will also participate in poetry readings and programs presented by the museum and the Academy of American Poets, and collaborate on devising installations in a public engagement space within the museum.
The Guggenheim established the residency program to create enriching experiences with poetry for visitors. It also continues the museum’s commitment to amplifying diverse voices and perspectives within its programming.
This post was originally published in College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
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