Spring and Poetry are in the Air

Seven p.m. April 12th, come listen to and discuss poetry created by two of our region’s premier poets: Liam Hysjulien and Marilyn Kallet.  This program will be part of the Knoxville Writers’ Guild monthly gathering which has been rescheduled to the second Thursday of the month in order to honor Knoxville’s legendary poet Nikki Giovanni and her appearance at the Bijou Thursday April 5th.

Poet Liam Hysjulien

Liam Hysjulien’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, the New Republic, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. He is currently the Coordinator for Academic Advising in the Political Science department at the University of Tennessee. Liam and his wife moved from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to Knoxville ten years ago.  Beside writing, he enjoys cycling, hiking, and all things Italian, especially wine and pasta.

Quote: “For the April reading, I’ll be reading poems that center around timely issues of masculinity, memory, and how we struggle with these issues in contradictions through poetry.  Many of the poems that I’ll be reading will come from a manuscript on which I am currently working, titled ‘Let Live.'”

Poet Marilyn Kallet

Marilyn Kallet is the author of 18 books, including How Our Bodies Learned, The Love That Moves Me and Packing Light: New and Selected Poems, poetry from Black Widow Press. She has translated Paul Eluard’s Last Love Poems, Péret’s The Big Game, and co-translated Chantal Bizzini’s Disenchanted City. Dr. Kallet is Nancy Moore Goslee Professor of English at the University of Tennessee. For a decade, she has also lead poetry workshops for VCCA-France, in Auvillar. She has performed her poems on campuses and in theaters across the United States as well as in France and Poland, as a guest of the U.S. Embassy’s “America Presents” program.

Quote: “I will be performing poems from my new book, How Our Bodies Learned, Black Widow Press, 2018. The collection includes love and blues, poems about the Paris terror attacks (I was there), anti-bullet poems––including the ode to Zaevion Dobson. There will be lots of humor, never fear! We can write an ode together, and I will answer your questions about composing, performing, and publishing!

My co-reader, Lliam Hysjulien, is one of the finest poets in the United States––but very humble!”

This event is open to the general public.  We suggest a minimum donation of $2 at the door which enables us to continue to bring Knoxville quality writing workshops and programs.  See you at 201 Third Avenue (Central United Methodist Church in Knoxville’s 4th and Gill neighborhood) at 7:00 pm for this 2 hour program. Thank you for supporting the KWG!