POET HEATHER MCHUGH WILL BE REA VISITING WRITER AT U.VA. 

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., March 13 -- Award-winning poet Heather
McHugh will be the Rea Visiting Writer at the University of Virginia
during the week of March 24.
	McHugh, whose work has been re-published in numerous
anthologies of contemporary poetry, a will give an informal talk about
the craft of poetry on Tuesday, March 25, at 8 p.m. in Campbell Hall
153. She will read from her work at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 27, at
the same location. Both events are free and open to the public.
	As a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award winner for 1995-98,
she's working on two new books (one of essays and one of poems) and
overseeing a book-arts project in an elementary school in downeast
Maine, under the auspices of which the students both produce bound
editions of their own poetry collections and become acquainted with
the internet resources for publishing an electronic magazine,
communicating with other elementary students in far-flung parts of the
world.
	McHugh's poetry collections include "Hinge and Sign: Poems
1968-1993," "Shades," "To the Quick," A World of Difference" and
"Dangers." She has also translated several volumes including, "Because
the Sea is Black: Poems by Blaga Dimitrova," "D'Apres Tout: Poems by
Jean Follain," and, most recently, "107 Poems after Paul Celan." 
	McHugh has received numerous awards and honors for her poetry.
They include a National Endowment for the Arts grant in poetry, a
Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio grant, an Academy of American Poets
Prize and several Pushcart prizes. She is currently a professor in the
Creative Writing Program at the University of Washington in Seattle. 
	The Rea Visiting Writer program in the U.Va. English
department's Creative Writing Program is supported by the Dungannon
Foundation in New York.
	For more information contact the U.Va. Creative Writing
Program at (804) 924-6675.
###
March 12, 1997

	Television reporters should call our TV News Office at (804)
924-7550.