An evening of poetry: MaryAnn Corbett reads from "Mid Evil"; Anna George Meek reads from "The Genome Rhapsodies"; and Michael Kiesow Moore reads from "What to Pray For"

Join us for an evening of poetry with three local authors.

Mid Evil by Maryann Corbett, recipient of the 2014 Richard Wilbur Award, is a deeply profound yet uniquely accessible collection of exquisitely crafted poems, which are haunted by the past as it relates to our present-day lives. As poet Ned Balbo has written, “Corbett s poems are both historically attentive and absolutely up-to-date,” and they deal not only with the poet's scholarly interests, but also consider, with great sensitivity and compassion, such issues as motherhood, gender, mortality, and the contemporary relationship between high and pop culture.

Maryann Corbett grew up in McLean, Virginia. She is the author of Breath Control. Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared in River Styx, Atlanta Review, Rattle e-issues, The Evansville Review, Measure, Literary Imagination, The Dark Horse, Mezzo Cammin, Linebreak, Subtropics, and others. Her poems have have won the Lyric Memorial Award and the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and works for the Minnesota Legislature. She is married to John Corbett, a teacher of statistics and mathematics, and they have two grown children.

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“There are moments in our lives when a veil seems lifted and the interconnectedness of the world is revealed. The Genome Rhapsodies seems born from these epiphanic flashes.”--Matt Rasmussen, author of Black Aperture, National Book Award finalist

"In Genome Rhapsodies we consider the basic components of the human body, the notes that make familiar music, and single memories composing the whole of memory itself.... Anna Meek’s tone is intimate, erotic, and intellectual at once. Each body flows, she shows us, into the next body like “a plate of honey” both “sweet, and ominous.” We touch one another, whether we want to touch or not.”--Heid E. Erdrich, author of Cell Traffic, New and Selected Poems

Anna George Meek has published in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Seneca Review, The Missouri Review (where she was awarded the Tom McAfee Discovery Prize), Water~Stone, Crazyhorse, and dozens of other national journals. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, two Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowships, and an Academy of American Poetry Prize. Meek sings professionally with the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers and is a professor of English in the Twin Cities.

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In his new collection, What to Pray For, Michael Kiesow brings imagination and insight to subjects drawn from personal history and cultural experiences ranging from cooking to dance, myth, and music. Childhood traumas and the persecution of those who are “different” provide the subtext for poems of sometimes surprising whimsy and freshness. Homey images sit side by side with scenes of angelic splendor, and compassion for troubled souls spurs theological reflections buoyed less by logic than passionate imagery. It’s clear that the author has been moved and inspired by the efforts of others--Hockney, Nijinksy, Piazzolla--and his own poems extend that tradition in new directions. As fellow poet Deborah Keenan put is, Moore's poems strive to “put mystery back in the moon.”

Michael Kiesow Moore was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming and grew up in Florida and Maryland. A transplant to Minnesota, he loves being active in the vibrant writing community here. He received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Hamline University and his work has appeared in several books and journals, including Among the Leaves: Queer Male Poets on the Midwestern Experience, Water~Stone Review, Talking Stick, Evergreen Chronicles, The James White Review,and A Loving Testimony: Losing Loved Ones Lost to AIDS. His awards have included a Minnesota State Arts Board fellowship, a Loft Mentor Series Award, and a Pushcart nomination in poetry. He curates the Birchbark Books Reading Series at Birchbark Books. For more information, please visit www.michaelkiesowmoore.com.