Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

To Call Forth By Noticing

For Nashville poet Lisa Dordal, paying attention is a kind of prayer

It’s difficult to make a poetics out of forgiveness, but that’s what Lisa Dordal accomplishes in her new collection, Mosaic of the Dark. Dordal will give three Nashville readings: at The Post on February 6, at Atmalogy on February 9, and at the First Unitarian Universalist Church on February 21.

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What Power Has Love

The poems in Marilyn Kallet’s new collection embrace the human struggle to reconcile the animal and the divine

How Our Bodies Learned, the new poetry collection from Knoxville poet Marilyn Kallet, is a sensual and spiritual guide to understanding what love is—and what it isn’t. Kallet will read from the book at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on January 29 and at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on February 15.

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The Crooked Road Less Taken

Jill Bialosky shows how poetry has added shape and meaning to her life

In her new memoir, Poetry Will Save Your Life, Jill Bialosky describes the way certain poems offered comfort through difficult times. Bialosky will give a free public reading at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on February 26.

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Looking Back—and Looking Forward

Editor Adam Ross talks with Chapter 16 about the 500th issue of The Sewanee Review

This fall marks the publication of the 500th issue of The Sewanee Review and a full year of issues under Adam Ross’s leadership. Today the Nashville novelist talks with Chapter 16 about how the past informs the present—and influences the future—at the oldest literary magazine in the country.

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Stars of Southern Literature Arrive in Tennessee

The SouthWord Literary Feast will convene in Chattanooga November 3-4

SouthWord Literary Feast, a biennial book festival and reunion of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, will feature forty celebrated Southern authors, including Wendell Berry, Charles Frazier, Jill McCorkle, and Ron Rash. Seating is available for talks, readings, panel discussions, book signings, and meals November 3 and 4.

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Wordsworth’s Heir

Billy Collins, former poet laureate, talks with Chapter 16 about why we’re all born for poetry—and how school kills it for kids

Billy Collins is a frequent guest on National Public Radio shows like A Prairie Home Companion and Fresh Air, and his readings pack even halls that seat two thousand people or more. Collins will read from his new collection, The Rain in Portugal, at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music on October 26 at 6:15 p.m.

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