Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, and Natasha Tretheway, former US Poet Laureate, to be featured during Walk the Walk Week

The University of Notre Dame’s eighth annual Walk the Walk Week will take place Jan. 19 (Thursday) through Jan. 27 (Friday). Walk the Walk Week is a campus-wide series of events and discussions designed to invite reflection about diversity and inclusion at Notre Dame, in local communities and across the nation.

This year’s keynote events include a talk by Natasha Trethewey, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former two-time Poet Laureate of the United States, and an annual prayer service with a reflection by the Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church. Both events are free and open to the public.

Trethewey, who is an artist-in-residence this year with the Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience, will present a meditation titled “Why I Write” at 5 p.m. Jan. 19 in Room 215/216, McKenna Hall.

Trethewey is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir” (2020); a book of nonfiction, “Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast” (2010); and five collections of poetry. In 2017 she received the Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities, and in 2020, she received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from the Library of Congress. At Northwestern University she is the Board of Trustees Professor of English in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

At 6:30 p.m. Jan. 22 (Sunday) in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the University will hold its annual Walk the Walk Week prayer service. Bishop Curry will deliver the keynote reflection.

Bishop Curry serves as The Episcopal Church’s chief pastor, spokesperson and president and chief executive officer. Throughout his ministry, he has been a prophetic leader, particularly in the areas of racial reconciliation, climate change, evangelism, immigration policy and marriage equality. Bishop Curry was ordained a priest in 1978 and served parishes in North Carolina, Ohio and Maryland until his 2000 election as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. He graduated with high honors from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and earned his master of divinity degree from Yale University. Bishop Curry is the author of five books and a regular guest on national and international media outlets.

A candlelight march and reception in the Main Building Rotunda will follow the prayer service.