UVa-Wise Coffee Night to feature professor emeritus Richard Peake

Richard Peake, author and professor emeritus of English at The University of Virginia’s College at Wise, will present “A Bard’s Journey with Birds and Beasts” during Coffee Night on April 15 at 6:30 p.m. in the Chapel of All Faiths.

Sponsored by the Department of Language and Literature, the Department of Communication Studies and the staff of the “Jimson Weed,” Coffee Night is a reading/performing event dedicated to the poetry and prose of campus and community creative writers. The spring 2008 “Jimson Weed” will premiere at the event.

Peake is the founder of the “Jimson Weed” literary magazine. He served the College for more than 30 years in the departments of English and Language and Literature as a department chair and for one year as acting dean of the College.

His writing career began in 1955 with poems published in the “University of Virginia Magazine.” He became poetry editor of the magazine the next year. Since that time he has published extensively and has been anthologized in “A Gathering at the Forks” (1993). His publication in journals (1968-1975) earned him an NEH Fellowship at Rice University in 1978. Peake’s poem “Hiking Down Straight Fork” won first prize for poetry at the Virginia Highlands Festival in Abingdon.

Peake has published three books of poetry, “Wings Across” (1991), “Poems for Terence” (1994) and “Birds and Other Beasts” (2007). He also has published two novels, “Jack Be Nimble” (2003) and “Moon’s Black Gold” (2007). Currently, he is working on a third novel, “The List,” a comedic novel about birding. A lifelong birder with over 3,000 confirmed species sightings, he has published work on ornithology, including “Birds of the Virginia Cumberlands” (2001).

Another current project is “The Door to Door Show,” a coming-of-age narrative poem based on Peake’s 1953 hiatus from college to deliver Proctor and Gamble coupons and samples door to door.

Since 2000, Peake has been a frequent contributor of poems and short stories to the “Jimson Weed.” His poetry is characterized by attention to meter and form, and by subtle, often ironic, use of nature imagery drawn from his expertise in birding.

Peake received both his Bachelor of Arts with honors and Master of Arts in English from the University of Virginia and completed a Ph.D. in English at the University of Georgia in 1966. He has since taught at Clemson University and the University of Georgia before coming to UVa-Wise. Born and raised in Norfolk, Peake and his wife of 50 years, Martha, have two sons, Dwight and Tom. The Peakes currently reside in Galveston, Texas, close to their elder son and his family.

Coffee Night will also feature “Spring Highland Voices: Writers and Performers of the College and Community,” including Catherine Mahony, Gary Crum, John Reeves, Erin Dalton, Jade Bolling, Emahunn Campbell, Marcus Adkins, Sarah Davis, Craig Rice, Morgan McKinnon and others. Coffee Night’s house band is The Five O’Clock Shadows, featuring Jennifer Hawkins of Bristol.

Coffee Night is free and open to the public. Students attending Coffee Night may receive cultural activities credit.

For more information, contact the Office of College Relations at 276-328-0130.

Posted April 8, 2008