USC hosts poet Maggie Dietz at literary festival

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The University of South Carolina is opening its fall literary festival with a visit from Maggie Dietz, who brings poetry to the general public as director of the American Favorite Poem Project.

Dietz was speaking Thursday on writing, and recently read from her works during an appearance at the Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library on the Columbia campus.

Dietz works with U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky and has co-edited three anthologies related to the Favorite Poem Project.

Her book of poems, “Perennial Fall,” won the 2007 Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry. She is also the assistant poetry editor at Slate.

Dietz’s appearance is free and open to the public.