‘The Muse x2’ Poetry Reading Series with Patrick Donnelly and Carmen Giminez Smith

Event Description

Collected Works Bookstore and the Muse Times Two Poetry Series present Patrick Donnelly and Carmen Giminez Smith for a reading of their latest work.

Patrick Donnelly is a poet, translator, editor, and teacher of creative writing.  He is the author of the poetry collections The Charge and Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin, and, along with Stephen D. Miller, has translated one hundred forty-one poems in The Wind from Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period.  He is an associate editor at Poetry International, and teaches advanced seminars at The Frost Place, a poetry conference center at Robert Frost's residence.  His book Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin was lauded by Chase Twichell as "An ambitious, winged re-imagining of the possibilities of voice, of what it means to be a particular human being... in a particular time and place.  Intercut with the poems are translations from the Japanese, which have the strange and powerful effect of making Donnelly's distinctly American poems feel timeless."

Carmen Giminez Smith is the author of a memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds, and three poetry collections: Goodbye, Flicker; The City She Was; and Odalisque in Pieces.  She is the recipient of a 2011 American Book Award, the 2011 Juniper Prize for Poetry, and a 2011-2012 fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Howard Foundation.  Formerly a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, she now teaches in the creative writing programs at New Mexico State University and Ashland University.  Her collection The City She Was was lauded by poet Matthea Harvey: "When you open this book, expect serious role-playing and syntactic tap-dancing.  The City She Was presents a world that 'brings the horizon line into your lexicon.'  Smith muddles and enchants with her many masks, leaving the ground a little less stable under our feet."

The Muse Times Two Poetry Series is a project of Lore of the land, Inc., a nonprofit 501c3 organization.  Donations in support of this poetry program are tax-deductible under the IRS code.