LEWISTON – Kirpal Singh, a poet, literary and cultural critic, and university lecturer in English language and literature, will read from his poems and speak on “Experiencing Life and Responding Honestly” Monday, March 19, at L/A College.

Singh has published four collections of poetry and has edited many literary journals and books. He was a founding member of the Centre for Research in New Literatures, Flinders University, Australia, in 1977; the first Asian director for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1993 and 1994; and chairman of the Singapore Writers’ Festival in the 1990s.

He is currently an associate professor with the Singapore Management University, where he founded the Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies and was its founding director. Since joining SMU, Singh has become known as a “creativity guru,” and his latest book, “Thinking Hats & Coloured Turbans: Creativity Across Cultures,” 2004, sold out within a few months. He was visiting professor at MIT and USM/L-A this past fall semester and has given lectures and readings of his work at some of the most prestigious universities around the world, including Yale, Columbia, MIT, Georgetown, Cambridge, Oxford, and Toronto.

In his talk, Singh will provide a brief background on poetic traditions in the complex multicultural society of Singapore, placing the reading of his own poems that will follow this evening in the context of the development of poetics in Singapore. Multicultural Singapore is one of the world’s most successful examples of intercultural harmony, and he plans to illustrate how this works.

He will lecture from 6:45 to 7:45 p.m. in the college building at 51 Westminster St. The event is free and open to the public.