Writers' Workshop graduate Stephen Kuusisto will read from his third poetry collection, Close Escapes, and will be in conversation with Iowa International Writing Program director Christopher Merrill. Described by publisher Copper Canyon Press as "[moving] through a river of memory," Close Escapes drifts through "time and place—Tallinn, New York, a Velamo monastery—[and] our anchor is the poet, navigating a sightless world with intelligence and dark humor" (coppercanyonpress.org). Praised by Stephanie Burt as "Part lyric sequence, part verse notebook" and "[a] gathering of hushed moments, meditative asides and noticings ‘beside the painful river of waking’ [that] echoes earlier writers who used their verse to acknowledge the world’s great unknowns: W.S. Merwin, for example, and the Swedish Nobelist Tomas Tranströmer," Close Escapes is also praised by Diego Báez as "a book of poems characterized by a kind of Nordic Zen . . . Always a pleasure to read, Kuusisto hits a gentle stride here that alternately embraces and releases the world, where ‘Down valley the river / Has melted and frozen again'."

Stephen Kuusisto directs The Burton Blatt Institute’s interdisciplinary programs in disability at Syracuse University where he holds a University Professorship. He is the author of the memoirs Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”) and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening, and of the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light, and Letters to Borges. His newest memoir, Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey was published by Simon & Schuster. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a Fulbright Scholar, he has taught at the University of Iowa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and The Ohio State University. Kuusisto has served as an advisor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and to the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dateline, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, and Animal Planet. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s, and The Reader’s Digest. His daily blog, Planet of the Blind, is read globally by people interested in disability and contemporary culture. He is a frequent speaker in the U.S. and abroad.

Christopher Merrill has published seven collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and translations; and six books of nonfiction, among them, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War, and Self-Portrait with Dogwood. His writings have been translated into nearly forty languages; his journalism appears widely; his honors include a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, numerous translation awards, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial and Ingram Merrill Foundations. As director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa since 2000, Merrill has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than fifty countries. He served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO from 2011-2018, and in April 2012 President Barack Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities.

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Readings at Prairie Lights are sponsored by the Writing University.}