Poet Blas Falconer will read his work at Writers in the Library on Monday, October 24, 7 p.m. at the UT Hodges Library Auditorium. The reading is free and open to the public.

In his latest book of poems, A Question of Gravity and Light, Falconer uses the metaphor of “crossings” to tie together poems in free verse and traditional poetic forms. The jacket notes for A Question of Gravity and Light describe his “delicacy of his touch, never obvious or heavy-handed. As a gay man who embraces his Puerto Rican heritage, Falconer stands at an edge of American society, and there is the tension of borders in his work: borders between peoples and nations as well as the less visible, more porous and deceptive borders between family members and lovers. There is not one point of view in these poems but many.”

Falconer is also the author of a poetry chapbook, The Perfect Hour, and co-editor of two anthologies, Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets and The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity, a forthcoming collection of essays on contemporary Latino poetry. (Read a review of The Other Latin@ on CHAPTER 16: A COMMUNITY OF TENNESSEE WRITERS, READERS & PASSERSBY: www.chapter16.org/content/diversity-within-diversity.

His honors include the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award, the New Delta Review Eyster Prize for Poetry, the Barthelme Fellowship, and a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship.

Falconer is associate professor of Languages and Literature at Austin Peay State University and poetry editor of Zone 3 Press and the literary journal, Zone 3.

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the UT Department of English. For further information contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program (mkallet@utk.edu), or Jeff Daniel Marion, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries (dannymar@earthlink.net).