Tina Barr, an award-winning poet and esteemed teacher of creative writing, returns to her alma mater Saturday, January 25 as the featured writer at Foxcroft School's Paul K. Bergan Poetry Festival, English Department Chair Alexander O. Northrup announced recently.

As Foxcroft marks its centennial year, it is especially appropriate to feature one of its very accomplished alumnae. A member of Foxcroft's Class of 1973, Barr is author of three award-winning chapbooks and "The Gathering Eye," a collection of poems that won the Tupelo Press Editor's Award. She has had works published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies as well and was director of the Creative Writing Program at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, for more than a decade.

Barr will hold a reading in the Audrey B. Currier Library Saturday morning at 10 am, followed by a writing workshop. Beginning at 1:00 pm she will judge competitive poetry readings by students in FoxHound Auditorium. Students and faculty will also share original and published poetry, in English and in a variety of other languages, during the afternoon session.

The festival begins Friday evening at 7:30 pm in FoxHound with a coffee house-style open mike session, emceed by Steve McCarty of the English Department, and the much-anticipated Winter Hunter SHOW. All the festival events are open to the public at no charge. For more information, call 540.687.4511.

The "Slam" is an informal approach to sharing poetry – the let-your-hair-down, audience-involved kind of spoken word performance that is popular in college towns and coffee shops across the nation. Original works, presented dramatically by their student-authors, will be judged by students in an elimination-round format that always elicits an enthusiastic response from the audience, and earns the winners cash prizes.

Saturday's formal reading competition, by contrast, has a long history, dating back to Foxcroft's early years when Bible readings were part of the event. It has a strictly prescribed format: Every student participates by reading a published poem in English class. Those who advance through two rounds – judged first by their peers and then by a panel of faculty members – will read in the final with the winners receiving a traditional crown of laurels.

A Black Mountain, NC, resident, Barr teaches in the Great Smokies Program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and at Montreat College, works with private students, and conducts workshops. She was Charles R. Glover Chair of English Studies and Associate Professor at Rhodes College and an award-winning professor at Temple University. After graduating from Foxcroft, Barr earned a BA at Sarah Lawrence College. She also holds an MFA from Columbia University's School of the Arts and both master's and doctorates in Literature from Temple.

For more information about Barr, as well as samples of her poetry, visit her website at www.tinabar.com.