Terri Coles

The 2020 Pratt Lecture will be held at LSPU Hall on March 4. This year's lecturer is Mary Dalton: founder of the Sparks Literary Festival, Poet Laureate of St. John's, and author of many fine volumes of poetry.

Dalton is the author of The Time of Icicles, Allowing the Light, Merrybegot, Red Ledger, and Hooking; she is the founder of the Sparks Literary Festival; she is professor emerita of Memorial University’s Department of English; and she is Poet Laureate of St. John’s. The Pratt Lecture is the oldest public lecture at Memorial University; recent Lecturers include Don McKay, Anne Carson, Dionne Brand, and George Elliott Clarke.

As part of the Pratt Lecture celebrations, there will be a public reading of Merrybegot, Dalton’s acclaimed celebration of the Newfoundland voice. This reading will take place the day before the Lecture, on Tuesday, March 3, at 8 p.m. in the Cox & Palmer Second Space.

Admission to both events is free.