In a posthumous collection, poet Diann Blakely casts her lot with outsiders
Rain in Our Door: Duets with Robert Johnson is the last and most radical collection by the late Nashville poet Diann Blakely. The book’s title is taken from the Mississippi musician’s own lyrics: “You better come on in my kitchen, cause there’s gonna be rain in our door.”
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U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith talks about inspiration, personal reflection, and recitation
To contemplate the afterlife might seem like a pointless exercise: what can we really know of such matters? When U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith was writing her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, Life On Mars, she learned that fulfillment could be found in the contemplation itself. Smith will deliver the Willis Plenary Address at the 2018 Christian Scholars’ Conference held at Lipscomb University in Nashville June 6-8.
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Book Excerpt: Skin Splitting
Bryanna Licciardi is a graduate of Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, earned an M.F.A. in poetry from Emerson College, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in literacy studies from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. Skin Splitting is her first book.
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Poets Jesse Graves and William Wright merge perspectives in Specter Mountain
Throughout Specter Mountain, Jesse Graves and William Wright’s collaborative poetry collection, the mountain landscape itself emerges as a powerful, haunting source of revelation. The result is a unique contribution to Appalachian literature.
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Book Excerpt: Darwin’s Breath
Connie Jordan Green lives on a farm in Loudon County, where her column for the Loudon County News Herald is in its fortieth year. She is the author of four poetry collections and will read from the newest, Darwin’s Breath at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 15.
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Ann Fisher-Wirth and Maude Schuyler Clay explore a state’s compelling character in Mississippi
In Mississippi, poet Ann Fisher-Wirth and photographer Maude Schuyler Clay create a nuanced portrait that transcends the usual Southern stereotypes. Both authors will appear at Burke’s Books in Memphis on March 29 at 5:30 p.m.
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