Cleveland State University will present a lecture by Eleanor Lerman, the poet, writer and National Book Award Nominee, on Thursday, November 13 at 1:30 p.m. in Main Classroom, room 134, located at 1899 East 22nd Street.

Lerman’s topic is titled “Vampires Are Happier When They Are Homosexual, or Adventures in the Poetry Trade” and is part of Cleveland State’s 2008-2008 Cultural Crossings Lecture Series: Memories, Reflections and Recollections.

The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture.

Lerman is a lifelong New Yorker, growing up in the Bronx and Rockaway Beach. Her first book of poetry, Armed Love, was published when she was 21, and was nominated for a National Book Award. The New York Times, however, called the book x-rated. This was 30 years ago, and young women weren't supposed to write books about sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, the subjects of her book.

Two years later, she published a slightly more muted and melancholy book of poems, Come the Sweet By and By. It would be 25 years until she wrote another, The Mystery of Meteors (Sarabande Books, 2001). In 2005, she published her fourth book, Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds, also available from Sarabande. Lerman has also published short stories and nonfiction in a variety of venues and publications.

The Cultural Crossings lecture series is sponsored by Cleveland State’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. For more information, please call 216.523.7168 or visit www.csuohio.edu/class/crossings.

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