On Monday, November 13, poet and editor Kaveh Akbar will read as part of UT’s Writers in the Library reading series. Kaveh Akbar’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, APR, Ploughshares, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere. His debut full-length collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, was released by Alice James Books in September 2017; he is also the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic from Sibling Rivalry Press.

A recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Kaveh Akbar was born in Tehran, Iran, and is a Visiting Professor of Poetry in the Purdue University MFA program. He is also the founding editor of Divedapper.

Of Akbar’s debut full-length collection, Publishers Weekly writes, “[Akbar] animates myriad human struggles—addiction, estrangement from one’s body and language, faith and its absence—with empathy, intimacy, and expansive vision… A breathtaking addition to the canon of addiction literature, Akbar’s poetry confronts the pain and joy in denying oneself for the sake of oneself. He suggests redemption without ignoring the violence that attends it.”

The reading begins at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public; all are encouraged to attend. 

The mission of Writers in the Library is to “showcase the work of novelists, poets, and other literary craftsmen.” Some of the best voices in contemporary literature are invited to read. The series is sponsored by the UT Libraries and the Creative Writing Program in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund. 

For more information, contact Erin Elizabeth Smith, Jack E. Reese Writer-in-Residence at the UT Libraries, at esmith83@utk.edu or visit http://library.utk.edu/writers for a complete schedule of Writers in the Library readings for the 2017-2018 academic year.

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