4 poets + 2 stages = POEMPALOOZA!!!

Get ready! Thursday, Dec. 4, we've got a doubleheader fireworks display of poetry: nothing short of a Poempalooza, a twenty-one-gun salute of verse to close out the fall semester.

1. First, the FELIX Series presents Kimberly Johnson and our own Amaud Jamaul Johnson at 4:00pm in Memorial Library Room 126.

Kimberly Johnson is a translator, Renaissance scholar, and the author of two books of poems, A Metaphorical God and Leviathan with a Hook. Her poems appear widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Slate, and The Iowa Review. Johnson has received prizes from the Merton Foundation and the Utah Arts Council, and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Salt Lake City.

"These are wild, inventive, hungry, celebratory poems. Kimberly Johnson rises in a few lines from weevils to threshing the stars. She is a worthy reader of the Psalms and the Book of Job; she has something of Hopkins' eye for the blessed particular, and his tongue for full-bodied song. These poems fear neither glory nor ruin."—Rosanna Warren

Amaud Jamaul Johnson is a native son of Compton, California and author of Red Summer (Tupelo Press, 2004 Dorset Prize winner). He received his BA in English from Howard University and a MPS in African American Studies from Cornell University. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University and a member of the Cave Canem Workshop, he is widely published in journals and is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconson-Madison.

"Johnson speaks from a space he describes at one point as 'between gravity and god' – that is, past the provable, material world, but just shy of any clear confirmation of prayer or faith – and it's a particular kind of faith that these poems at once enact and point to, what Robert Hayden called 'The deep immortal human wish, / timeless will,' the will to believe. Johnson's poems remind us that the human record is at last a mixed one: violence, shame, betrayal, and fear, but also joy, courage, love and, yes, hope." — Carl Phillips

2. Then, join us that evening at Avol's Books at 7:00pm for the grand finale of the Blue Ox Reading Series featuring poetry by MFA candidates Kristen Muir and Laurel Bastian. It's going to be awesome.

Thanks again to Michael Fusco & Emma Straub for our terrific Blue Ox Reading Series posters!

Anne Shaw & Lisa Marie Brodsky Read Thursday, Nov. 20 @ 7:00pm

Take refuge from the cold & snow Thursday to hear Anne Shaw and Lisa Marie Brodsky share their poetry at 7:00pm in Helen C. White 6191.


Anne Shaw is the author of Undertow (Persea Books), winner of the 2007 Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including New American Writing, Court Green, The Journal, Gulf Coast, and Subtropics. She has been a recipient of a Gertrude Stein Award from Green Integer Press, a finalist for the Colorado Poetry Prize, and recently awarded first prize in the Literal Latté Food Verse contest. Shaw teaches creative writing at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. Visit her website to learn more.


Lisa Marie Brodsky was born in Chicago and moved to Madison in 2001. She received her Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2005. Her poetry and fiction have been published in The North American Review, Born Magazine, The Southern Ocean Review, The Atlanta Review, Circle Magazine, the Taj Mahal Review, among others. She also has a chapbook of poetry out from Parallel Press entitled, We Nod Our Dark Heads.

Blue Ox Reading Series (vol. 2)

Above: Another incredible poster from Michael Fusco & Emma Straub over at Michael Fusco Design. For your daily dose of awesome, check out the website here.

That's right, it's just about time for another Blue Ox Reading, which features work by MFA candidates from UW-Madison's Program in Creative Writing.

This time, Ryan Walsh and Jessica Nordell will share some poems with you on Thursday, November 13th at 7:00 p.m. at Avol's Books in downtown Madison (315 W. Gorham St.).

Readings This Week!

I've just heard about a couple poetry readings that sound really solid.

The first reading is at Avol's Books (315 Gorham St.) this Sunday, November 9th, at 2:00pm.

The featured readers are Katy Lederer, author of The Heaven Sent Leaf, and Kazim Ali, author of The Fortieth Day, and one of the founding editors of Nightboat Books.

Katy Lederer is the author of the poetry collection, Winter Sex (Verse Press, 2002) and the memoir Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers (Crown, 2003), which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year and Esquire Magazine named one of its eight Best Books of the Year. Her second poetry book, The Heaven-Sent Leaf is just out from BOA Editions.

Kazim Ali is is the author of two books of poetry, The Far Mosque (Alice James Books), winner of Alice James Books' New England/New York Award, and The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (blazeVox books), named one of "The Best Books of 2005" by Chronogram magazine.


Then on Tuesday, Nov. 11 at 4:30 pm, Ed Pavlic, a former UW student who is currently Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Georgia, will read in 7191 Helen C. White Hall.


Ed's most recent book, Winners Have Yet To Be Announced, is a response to the life and art of the African American singer, composer and pianist Donny Hathaway. His previous books of poems are Labors Lost Left Unfinished and Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue, which was selected by Adrienne Rich for the American Poetry Review / Honickman First Book Prize. He has also published a scholarly work, Crossroads Modernism, on African American literary culture.