Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Clear-Eyed Mystic

Joy Harjo’s poems celebrate transcendence and confront fear

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.

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Milagro

Book excerpt: The Heronry

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.

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Elegance of Fancy

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

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.

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The Provenance is Part of the Story

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

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.

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The Thing’s the Plays

Shakespeare’s First Folio comes to Nashville, signifying everything

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

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Ravening on Ahead

In his debut collection, Noah Warren accepts human limitations

In The Destroyer in the Glass, poet Noah Warren calmly considers the great mysteries of life and death. He will read at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on November 1 at 7 p.m. The event, part of the Gertrude Vanderbilt and Harold S. Vanderbilt Visiting Writers Series, is free and open to the public.

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