Poetry

April 5, 2011 The Libyan-born poet Khaled Mattawa has published several collections of his own poetry, including Tocqueville (2010), Amorisco (2008), Zodiac of Echoes (2003), and Ismailia Eclipse (1995) and has translated numerous volumes of contemporary Arabic poetry, including Shepherd of Solitude: Selected Poems of Amjad Nasser (2009) and Miracle Maker: Selected Poems of Fadhil Al-Azzawi (2004), in addition to co-editing the anthologies Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Arab American Fiction (2004) and Post Gibran: Anthology of New Arab American Writing (1999). Mattawa, a graduate of the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, has been awarded several Pushcart Prizes and the PEN Award for Literary Translation, in addition to a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, and the Alfred Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University. He is a Ford/United States Artist for 2011 and recipient of the 2010 Academy of American Poets Fellowship Prize. In recent weeks, Mattawa has been a frequent commentator on the current situation in Libya.

March 23, 2011 Gaylord Brewer is a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, where he founded and edits the literary journal Poems & Plays. His most recent books are a collection of poetry, Give Over, Graymalkin (2011), and the comic novella, Octavius the 1st (2008), both from Red Hen Press. He has published more than 800 poems in journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Brewer has taught in the Czech Republic, England, Kenya, and Russia. In June 2011 he will be in residence at the Arteles Creative Center in Finland. He is a native of Louisville and earned a Ph.D. at Ohio State University. In 2009, he was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship by the Tennessee Arts Commission.