Vox sat down with Pulitzer Prize winning poet Charles Wright, considered one of the greatest American poets of his time. Wright will be speaking at Georgetown on Tuesday, Mar. 26 at 8 p.m. in Copley Formal Lounge.

I’ve read a lot about that “magical day” in Italy when you first discovered [Ezra] Pound, as well as the influences you explored after this discovery. But I was wondering if you could speak more about what you were studying in your college years, and what you were trying to write about at the time.

Well, I went to a school called Davidson, which since I’ve left has become pretty good, and, since, they’ve let the girls in they’ve started offering the courses I would have wanted to take. When I was there it was all pre-law, pre-medicine, pre-business, and it was an all-boys school. I was a history major … mostly Southern history, I don’t know why I was interested in it at the time.

The only writing course they offered, every other year, was taught by the Shakespeare professor, and so basically there was no writing instruction at all. When I did try to write, I was writing what would have passed for fiction. It was just purple prose, ya know. I never wrote poetry at all, until I got in the army.

I loved that story, that you just sort of walked into the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and they took you, right?

Well, yeah. Basically I was never officially admitted. I had a B average from Davidson when I applied, and I was accepted to the graduate school at the University of Iowa. I just assumed it was the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. It was really loose in those days—it’s grown since then. When I sent my manuscript—and it was in August, which shows how smart I was. School started in September, and neither of the two teachers was in town in August. So each thought that the other had read it and let me in, and when they checked the list in the English department, there was my name. So I just showed up.

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This Tuesday, Feb. 12, in Copley Formal Lounge, the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice will host Rotimi Babatunde, winner of the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing. The prize, worth £10,000, was awarded to Babatunde for his short story “Bombay’s Republic.” Vox caught up with Babatunde earlier this week.

You won the Caine Prize this past summer for your short story Bombay’s Republic, and the work has quickly become one of your most well-known pieces. Are you at all worried that new audiences might come to associate you solely with Bombay’s Republic which is just one of your many wide-ranging works?

Not at all. I returned some days ago from the opening of Feast, a play which I co-wrote, at the Young Vic Theatre in London. Bombay’s Republic and the Caine Prize were practically unknown in that world of theater makers. In some respects, the genres of literature exist in different universes and I feel privileged to be able to inhabit multiple literary worlds. For those primarily interested in fiction, Bombay’s Republic could have primacy but, even if that’s the case, it won’t last forever. Rather than fretting over the story’s prominence, I would be more concerned about producing new work.

In one of your past interviews you discussed how different literary forms such as poetry and drama have dissimilar merits. Do you also believe that different literary forms should serve different social functions?

I believe that every worthwhile piece of writing should attempt to revitalize the hackneyed habits of language, to make its own little contribution to the evolution of its genre and to illuminate critical aspects of the human experience. I pursue these as common objectives in all my work, regardless of genre.

One of the recurring themes in Bombay’s Republic is the main character Bombay’s ever-expanding realization of the “possible.” Was there a specific message you were trying to convey to readers by developing this theme?

Freedom is one of the abiding aspirations of mankind and Bombay’s discovery of the extent of the possible freed him to dream new dreams and to reinvent his personality. Bombaymetamorphosis from the naive recruit to a savvy, worldly-wise veteran informed the radical actions he took on his return to his homeland. So the story is concerned not only with the realization of freedom but also with the uses of freedom. Readers I have interacted with have volunteered strikingly different opinions about the choices made by Bombay after his transformation. I find it more fascinating to imbue a work with such polysemous potential rather than passing across uncomplicated messages which are not necessarily undesirable, in some contexts, but which could be reductive.

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Though there may be plenty of uncertified prodigies roaming Georgetown’s halls, it’s rare that an alumnus actually gets recognized as a verified Genius. Dinaw Mengestu (C ’00), Georgetown’s Lannan Chair of Poetics, was announced on Monday as one of 23 recipients of a $500,000 “genius grant” of from the MacArthur Foundation. 

What was your first reaction upon hearing that you’d won the grant?

I started sobbing, but then I was by myself so there was no one to share it with so I was just kind of left to absorb it. The main thing, though, is I think I felt a lot of responsibility. I found out in Kenya two weeks ago, and it felt fitting there because I was doing a literary festival promoting literacy. It was the last place I lived before I came to America, and it really felt like the best place to hear about the award because it means I can spend more time in Africa and see how I can help small publishing houses there in Nairobi.

How have things changed for you since you found out?

I have known for a while but it was a secret so nothing has changed, and now everyone else knows so I have people to share it with – friends, family, colleagues. It’s also given me the freedom as a journalist to fund a story and report it well without having to worry about a publication affording it on the other end.

How did you feel about winning alongside Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz?

I was really honored. It would have been embarrassing if I had and he hadn’t, honestly.

I know you were the only two novelists who won the grant. What do you think made you stand out among other novelists?

I have no idea. All my friends are novelists and are great novelists. I have no idea why they chose me instead of somebody else.

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On Saturday, around 1000 activists from over 20 countries set sail for Gaza to try once again to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian supplies.

The move is a repeat of last year’s failed aid mission in which nine pro-Palestinian activists were left dead in Israeli military raids. One of the members of the original flotilla, Paul Larudee, received a Ph.D in linguistics at Georgetown in 1973.

The California piano tuner was arrested by Israeli soldiers after he jumped from one of the ships in order to delay the raid. Vox caught up with Larudee late last week to get his perspectives on Georgetown and the Gaza issue.

“My studies at Georgetown facilitates my awareness and activism,” he said. “But I wouldn’t say that they’re directly related.”

“The Jesuit identity encourages activism. There are activists like Steve Kelly [arrested for trespassing on the School of the Americas] who are themselves members of the Jesuit community.”

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This April for the second year in a row, the Georgetown University LGBTQ Center will hold Lavender Graduation, a ceremony for LGBTQ students and this year, for LGBT alumni. This year’s commencement speaker is Kara Swisher (SFS ’84), a writer and the co-executive editor for the Dow Jones blog All Things Digital. Vox caught up with Swisher to talk about her time at Georgetown, what she wants to tell Georgetown students, and “sneaky gays.”

When I spoke to [LGBTQ Center Director] Shiva Subbaraman, she said she had some trouble convincing you to speak at Georgetown. Was that related to your time here?

You know, I had a good academic time at Georgetown. I had some really terrific teachers and being in Washington was great. But on a whole lot of issues surrounding gays at the time, a lot of things really disgusted me. There was a group that wanted to organize to support gay students, and the school wouldn’t let them, and they sued, and the school went all legal crazy on them, and a huge legal battle ensued.

It was pretty appalling that the school used so many resources in a legal battle against its own students. And there was a counter-group called the Straight Students of Georgetown who mocked them …. The whole tenor surrounding gay issues at the time was very neanderthal, and so not in keeping with the tolerance that an institute of higher learning should show.

So what ultimately convinced you to speak here?

A lot of the gay activity, it’s so different now. When I went there, there was so much furtive gayness going on so it was just so hypocritical for the University to act like there were no gay Catholics that needed their support. I was so surprised that they have so much stuff going on for gay students. It’s something that happened to a lot of other schools a while ago, but for it to happen at Georgetown is still very surprising.

I was surprised to glad see that at the minimum, Georgetown said, we’re not condoning these negative viewpoints about gays. I was pretty to see that they have an [LGBTQ Center], and a center director.

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On Wednesday, D.C. Councilmember and Georgetown alum David Catania (I-At Large)(SFS ‘90, LAW ‘94) spoke to a Voice reporter about his run for re-election, his recent work on same-sex marriage and medical marijuana legalization, and his time at Georgetown. Below is a full transcript of their conversation. Interview conducted and transcribed by Claire Wheeler.

Voice: What led you to first become involved in politics?

Catania: Where should I begin … I was active in my neighborhood before running for the Council. In the mid-1990s I was active in my former neighborhood, which was called Sheridan-Kalorama. I ran for the [Advisory Neighborhood Commission] in 1996 and was successful in that race and then the opportunity presented itself to run for the Council in a special election. Based on the work I had done as an adviser to the Neighborhood Commission and the view I held about the direction of the City, I decided if we wanted the City to improve, we would have to have a new generation of leadership with a different set of priorities then the generation that preceded me. So when the opportunity presented itself to run for the council in 1997, I decided to run.

V: Why did you decide to run for re-election in the council?

C: I think first and foremost, that I have chaired the Committee on Health since January 2005 and over the last five years I think we have made a lot of progress on improving the quality of healthcare in the district and access to healthcare. We are working to narrow certain health disparities that exist in the city, but there are still many challenges and a lot of work to do. I had hoped that we would have universal access to health insurance by 2010. It was a goal of mine. The economic meltdown in 2008 has really frustrated that goal, but I am still committed to it. The District enjoys one of the lowest rates of uninsured in the country, thanks in part to the work that I have started in the past few years on expanding our Medicare programs and expanding our Alliance programs. The district is in the top-tier in the Nation in terms of insured, but we still have, nonetheless, about eight percent of our population that is not insured, and I want to continue my work to bring that down to zero.

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On Friday afternoon, Georgetown University President John DeGioia sat down with student reporters from the Voice and The Hoya to answer a range of questions about Georgetown, including the Ten Year Plan, the goals of the school’s $1.5 billion Capital Campaign, the progress of the Diversity Working Groups, and football.

Below is a full transcript of DeGioia’s interview, painstakingly transcribed by the Voice‘s Cole Stangler, our man at the meeting.

The highlights? In response to The Hoya‘s April Fools’ Issue and the recent Heckler incident, Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson’s office is going to conduct a “satire and civility” workshop.

The University has raised $580 million so far in its Capital Campaign. Georgetown’s science center will cost $98 million to complete and its target date for completion is Fall 2012.

Voice: How do you view our relationship right now with the neighborhood? I know a lot of students seem to be frustrated about the extent to which the University has entertained neighborhood input with some aspects of the Ten Year Plan—like rerouting the GUTS bus through the Canal Street entrance. How would you respond to students who feel that the University has made concessions to residents that harm University life?

DeGioia: Well, it’s always a very difficult balancing act to try to recognize and understand the needs of the community with what it will take for us to be able to be successful in our mission. And so the work of the master plan is generally ongoing on all the time. It’s not like it’s something that we begin in the months leading up to the need to have it approved.

It’s truly a ten-year effort. We’re always at it and we’re always engaged with our neighbors in trying to understand their needs and their concerns. At the same time, we frustrate them. If a neighborhood were sitting here, they’d be using the same language. So we’re always trying to get the right balance. I believe what you’re seeing right now are a range of ideas and proposals that have been on the table that we are considering in one form or another, but it very much is a work in progress.

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