Book Release Party for Faculty Member and Poet

April 30, 2012

BROOKLYN, NY May 1, 2012 - St. Josephs College is pleased to announce that Dr. Quincy Lehr, assistant professor of history, will release his second work of poetry, Obscure Classics of English Progressive Rock, this month. To celebrate this, St. Josephs will host a book release party on Saturday, May 12 at 6:00 p.m. in the Tuohy Hall Parlors on the Brooklyn Campus of St. Josephs College. At this gathering, Dr. Lehr will sign copies of his book and discuss the creative process that led to this books publication. This event is free and open to the public.

Obscure Classics of English Progressive Rock, Lehrs first collection of poems since 2008s critically acclaimed Across the Grid of Streets, extends and subtly alters that volumes vision. By turns witty and serious, gentle and acerbic, concise and expansive, this volume is a deeply personal collection, drawing both on Lehrs years in Ireland and in Brooklyn. Obscure Classics of English Progressive Rock confirms its authors stature as an important up-and-coming American poet.

 Lehrs first collection of poems, Across the Grid of Streets, was described by Fiona Sampson in The Irish Times as showing "much energy and narrative talent. Lehrs poetry and criticism have appeared in numerous journals throughout the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia, and the Czech Republic, and he is the associate editor of The Raintown Review. He curates the long-running Carmine Street Metrics reading in New York, and he co-founded Modern Metrics Press (now an imprint of EXOT Books) with R. Nemo Hill in 2006. He lives in Brooklyn, where he teaches history at St. Joseph's College.

"Quincy Lehr's is an imagination that keeps poetry keen and on its toes. Free of dogma and not dogged by encomium, his voice had to be imagined, in the words of Wallace Stevens, as an inevitable knowledge, said Rowan Ricardo Phillips, poet, essayist and translator.