The Beat

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Jesse Graves joined us at Lawson McGhee Library for a reading of his work. Jesse Graves is the author of five poetry collections, including Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine , Basin Ghosts , Specter Mountain , Merciful Days , the forthcoming A Little Light in the Grave , and a book of prose, Said-Songs: Essays on Poetry and Place . His work received th...

Donovan McAbee is a poet, songwriter, and essayist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME magazine, The Hudson Review, The Sun, Garden & Gun, Poetry London, and others. McAbee grew up in a small town in South Carolina, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD in Creative Writing and Contemporary...

Matt Broaddus is the author of Deeper the Tropics and Temporal Anomalies. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Annulet, Denver Quarterly, and The Paris Review. He lives in Colorado and serves as an Advisory Poetry Editor for The Paris Review. Links: Matt Broaddus' website "'Blue Prints' and Other Poems" at Changes "The Seal of Approval" at American Poetry Review "The Sun Is a Dis...

Shuly Xóchitl Cawood teaches writing workshops, doodles with Sharpies and acrylic paint, and is raising two poodles and a dwindling number of orchids. Her books include Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough (Press 53, 2023) and Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning (Mercer University Press, 2021), winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. Her work has been published in The New York T...

 Arlene Keizer, an Afro-Caribbean American poet and scholar, writes about the literature, lived experience, theory, and visual culture of the African Diaspora. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, she later earned an MA in English and Creative Writing (Poetry) at Stanford University and a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of  Black Subjects...

Chris Barton is the author of the poetry chapbook A Finely Calibrated Apocalypse, published by Bottlecap Press in 2024. His writing has appeared in Epiphany, Peach Magazine, The Plenitudes, Hotel, and elsewhere. From 2016 to 2019, he co-hosted the Electric Pheasant Poetry in Knoxville, TN.  Peter Gizzi grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His many books of poetry include Artificial Heart, Th...

Charles Douthat is a poet, retired litigator, and visual artist. Born and educated in California, he practiced law for many years in New Haven and began writing poems during a long mid-life illness. His first collection, Blue for Oceans, received the PEN New England Award, as the best book of poetry published in 2010 by a New England writer. Concerning Douthat’s newest book, Again, the poet Alan S...

Matthew Minicucci is an award-winning author of four collections of poems including his most recent, Dual, published in 2023 by Acre Books. His poetry and essays have appeared widely in various publications, including American Poetry Review, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, the Kenyon Review, Poetry, and The Southern Review. His work has garnered numerous awards including the Staf...

Sara Pirkle is a Southern poet, an identical twin, a breast cancer survivor, and a board game enthusiast. Her first full-length collection of poetry, The Disappearing Act, won the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry and was published by Mercer University Press in 2018. In 2019, she was nominated for Georgia Author of the Year in Poetry, and in 2022 she was shortlisted for the Oxford Poetry Prize. She a...

Recorded live, April 14, 2025 . In celebration of National Poetry Month, Denton Loving joined us for Lawson McGhee Library's monthly book discussion group, All Over the Page. Denton Loving is the author of the poetry collections Crimes Against Birds and Tamp, recipient of the inaugural Tennessee Book Award for Poetry. He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf...

Jennifer Horne served as the twelfth Poet Laureate of Alabama from 2017 to 2021. The author of four collections of poems, Bottle Tree , Little Wanderer , Borrowed Light, and, most recently, Letters to Little Rock, she also has written a collection of short stories, Tell the World You’re a Wildflower . She is the author of a literary biography, Odyssey of a Wandering Mind: The Strange Tale of Sara...

Cornelius Eady is a Professor of English and John C. Hodges Chair of Excellence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. From September 2021 to December 2022, he served as interim Director of Poets House in New York City. Eady published his first collection, Kartunes , in 1980. His second collection, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1985), was chosen as winner of the Academy of American P...

Cassandra de Alba has published several chapbooks including habitats by Horse Less Press in 2016, Ugly/Sad by Glass Poetry Press in 2020, and Cryptids, which was co-authored with Aly Pierce and published by Ginger Bug Press in 2020.  Her work has appeared in The Shallow Ends, Big Lucks, Wax Nine, The Baffler, Verse Daily, and others.  Amy Lowell was born in 1874 in Brookline, Massachuset...

Mathias Svalina is the author of seven books. His most recent, America at Play (published by Trident Press), is a collection of absurdist instructions for children's games. His poetry collection Thank You Terror was published earlier this year, and his first short story collection, Comedy, is forthcoming soon. Svalina was a founding editor of Octopus Books. He’s led writing workshops in universiti...

Jos Charles is author of the poetry collections  a Year & other poems  (Milkweed Editions, 2022),  feeld, a Pulitzer-finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series selected by Fady Joudah (Milkweed Editions, 2018), and  Safe Space  (Ahsahta Press, 2016). She teaches as a part of Randolph College's low-residency MFA program and resides in Long Beach, C...

Amish Trivedi is the author of three books. His most recent is FuturePanic (Co•Im•Press, 2021). His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, and others. Trivedi earned an MFA from Brown University and a PhD in English and Critical Theory from Illinois State University. He's an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Delawa...

Anna Laura Reeve is the author of  Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility  (Belle Point Press, 2023). Winner of the Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Salamander, Terrain.org, and others. She lives and gardens near the Tennessee Overhill region, traditional land of the Eastern Cherokee. Links: Anna Laura Re...

Zachary Schomburg is a poet, painter, and a publisher for Octopus Books, a small independent poetry press. He earned a BA from the College of the Ozarks and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Nebraska. He is the author of six books of poems including, most recently, Fjords vol. 2, published by Black Ocean in 2021 and a novel , Mammother, published by Featherproof Books in 2017. ...

Poet, playwright, and essayist Linda Parsons is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for  Chapter 16,  the literary website of Humanities Tennessee .  Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review ,  Iowa Review ,  Prairie Schooner ,  Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review...

Todd Davis is the author of seven books of poetry. His most recent collections are Coffin Honey and Native Species. His book Ditch Memory: New and Selected Poems is forthcoming from Michigan State University Press in August of 2024. He has won the Midwest Book Award, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Bronze and Silver Awards, the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, the Chautauqua Editors Prize, and...

Iliana Rocha earned her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from Western Michigan University. She is the 2019 winner of the Berkshire Prize for her book The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez (Tupelo Press). Her first book, Karankawa , won the 2014 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Best New Poets anthology, Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Nation, Virginia...

Harold Whit Williams is a poet and longtime guitarist for the indie rock band Cotton Mather . He's the recipient of the 2020 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, the 2014 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize, as well as multiple Pushcart nominations. Williams is currently cataloging the KUT Radio Collection for the University of Texas Libraries, all the while writin...

Denton Loving is the author of Crimes Against Birds  (Main Street Rag) and  Tamp  (Mercer University Press). He is also the editor of  Seeking Its Own Level: an anthology of writings about water  (MotesBooks). He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. His work has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review , The Kenyon Review,...

Hank Lazer has published thirty-four books of poetry; his latest books are P I E C E S, When the Time Comes, and field recordings   of mind   in morning. In 2014, he retired from the University of Alabama after 37 years as a professor and an administrator. He continues to teach innovative seminars on Zen Buddhism and Radical Approaches to the Arts for the University of Alabama'...

Jenny Sadre-Orafai is a poet and essayist and the author of  Dear Outsiders  and three other poetry collections .  Her poetry has appeared in  Puerto del Sol ,  Cream City Review ,  Ninth Letter , and  The Cortland Review.  Her prose has appeared in  The Rumpus ,  Fourteen Hills , and  The Los Angeles Review . She co-founded and...