National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes will delight Knoxville audiences with his poetry on Wednesday, September 21, 7 p.m., in the Hodges Library Auditorium. Hayes is known for his jazz-blues-infused urban riffs, for his agile and elegant verses, especially in Lighthead, which was honored by the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010.

Hayes will also offer an informal author chat, September 21, 3-4 p.m., 1210-1211 McClung Tower.

Terrrance Hayes is the author of four books of poems, including Lighthead; Wind in a Box; Hip Logic, winner of the National Poetry Series; Muscular Music, winner of both the Whiting Writers Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His work has won two Pushcart Prizes, and he has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Foundation grant. He has been featured on Jim Lehrer’s PBS News Hour.

He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University.

Both the reading and the informal chat are free and open to the public. Seating is limited — arrive early!

The events are sponsored by the University of Tennessee Creative Writing Program in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund, College of Arts & Sciences Haines-Morris Endowment Fund, Africana Studies, and Writers in the Library.

For more information, contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program, mkallet@utk.edu.