Mark Levine and Hajar Hussaini will read from their poetry. Mark Levine will read from Sound Fury: Poems. Throughout Sound Fury, poems by metaphysician Robert Herrick are refashioned into phantasmagorical oddities of likeness and difference. "Whether lark as in songbird, or lark as in stunt, these skeptical, fabulous poems pluck pieces from Herrick and Pope like particulate matter from which the wonder of a poem inexplicably grows.” — Sally Keith

Hajar Hussaini will read from Disbound....

Please join us in your own cozy home for a virtual reading celebrating issue 51/2! Hosted by editor Lynne Nugent, the evening will feature guest editor Tracie Morris and poets from her portfolio on poetic Black resiliency; fiction writer Dessa; and nonfiction writer Steffan Triplett. Come in to Prairie Lights the week before or after the virtual celebration to pick up a copy of TIR, and tucked inside will be a special commemorative bookmark of a poem by Tracie Morris.

Tracie Morris was the...

For the first event of Mic Check Poetry Fest, join us for this moderated discussion between two poetry performance artists as they present their work and share insights into the world of slam poetry. With Tracie Morris, Professor at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Steven Willis, recent MFA in Poetry from the Writers’ Workshop, this event offers a unique look into the history and growth of spoken word poetry, as well as its changing role in the academy.

Tracie Morris (MFA, Poetry...

The Writers' Workshop presents an in-person and virtual reading with Gish Jen.

Virtual attendees may join us via Zoom.

Gish Jen has published short work in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and dozens of other periodicals, anthologies and textbooks. Her work has been chosen for The Best American Short Stories five times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. Nominated for a National Book Critics’ Circle Award, her work was featured in a PBS American...