Poetry | Chapter 16

“Driving I-24 Through Kentucky at Night, I Think How Easy It Would Be”

Book excerpt: Visibility at Zero

By Austin Kodra | January 26, 2017

Visibility at Zero is Austin Kodra’s first full-length poetry collection. He received his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where he served as an editorial assistant for Crab Orchard Review. His poetry and fiction have been published in The Adroit Journal, Superstition Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and elsewhere. Kodra lives in Knoxville. He will discuss Visibility at Zero at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on January 30 at 7 p.m.

Clear-Eyed Mystic

Joy Harjo’s poems celebrate transcendence and confront fear

By Maria Browning | January 18, 2017

Acclaimed poet Joy Harjo’s most recent collection, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, delivers the exquisite mix of beauty, transcendence, and pain her work is known for. Harjo joined the creative-writing faculty at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville this year and will give a free public reading at UT’s Hodges Library on January 23 at 7 p.m.

Milagro

Book excerpt: The Heronry

By Mark Jarman | December 16, 2016

The Heronry is the eleventh collection of poems by celebrated Nashville poet Mark Jarman. The book will be released on January 10, and Jarman will give a public reading from it at Vanderbilt University on February 23. Here’s an early look: two poems.

Elegance of Fancy

A writer remembers Nashville’s BookMan/BookWoman, which will close its doors at the end of the year

By Michael Sims | November 17, 2016

Shelves groaned from overpopulation. But it was this gaudy Shakespearean excess, the Mumbai crowds of jostling books, that made it such a heady experience to visit BookMan/BookWoman. It was the archaic opulence of it all, as if you might come home smelling of myrrh.

The Provenance is Part of the Story

Today we’re celebrating Parnassus Books as the store celebrates its fifth anniversary

By Serenity Gerbman | November 16, 2016

In 2011, Karen Hayes and Ann Patchett opened Parnassus Books, which celebrates its fifth anniversary today. During that time, the Nashville store has doubled its space, bought a bookmobile, and brought authors, hundreds of them, to town. And they’re just getting started. Drop by the store today for special anniversary discounts, giveaways, prizes—and birthday cake.

The Thing’s the Plays

Shakespeare’s First Folio comes to Nashville, signifying everything

By Steve Haruch | November 7, 2016

first-folio “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare,” a new exhibit at the Nashville Parthenon, brings a four-centuries-old copy of the Bard’s first collection to Tennessee, and it is not to be missed. The rare book—on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death—will be on display from November 10, 2016, to January 8, 2017

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly