The Wiersma Lecture Series honors the memory of poet Stanley M. Wiersma, former professor of English at Calvin College. The purpose of the series is to encourage writers, promote the publication of excellent literature, and enhance the education of Christian readers in the enjoyment, understanding, and critique of contemporary literature.
Admission is free.
He was 55. Wiersma's poetry enjoyed an enormous popular reaction from literary lay people. A bard, a teller of folktales, Wiersma focused lengthy narrative poems on a small, ethnic group of characters and revealed through them our universal spiritual nature. Although a literary scholar and adept at the poet's craft, Wiersma did not write for specialized readers. Published under the pen name of Sietze Buning, Wiersma's two volumes, Purpaleanie and other Permutations and Style and Class , reached a large audience.