Calendar of Events
Poetry Reading
Coe College’s English, Creative Writing and Communication Studies Department will host a poetry reading featuring four Iowa writers on Monday, March 31 at 4:00 p.m. in the lobby of the Center for Health and Society on the Coe College campus. It is free and open to the public.
This special literary event will bring together four dynamic and important voices in the contemporary Iowa poetry scene: Hannah Bonner, Daniel Khalastchi, Margaret LeMay and Anna Morrison.
Hannah Bonner, a writer, film programmer and educator, is the creative nonfiction editor of Brink Literary Journal, a literary magazine based in Iowa City. A significant rising voice, Bonner was awarded the National Book Critics Circle’s Emerging Critics Fellowship in 2023-2024. She is film editor for TriQuarterly and teaches at the University of Iowa. Her first book of poems, Another Woman, was published last year.
Daniel Khalastchi, director of the University of Iowa’s Magid Center for Writing, is an Iraqi-Jewish poet, publisher and educator and the author of four books of poems. His latest collection, The Story of Your Obstinate Survival, received the 2024 National Jewish Book Award for poetry; Publisher’s Weekly wrote of it, “This genre-bending book overturns narrative conventions in pieces that question the line between public and private.”
Margaret LeMay, poetry professor at Coe College, has published in numerous literary journals, including Another Chicago Magazine, The Asian Pacific American Journal, Better, The Cortland Review, LEON Literary Review and, most recently, North American Review. Her work has served as title and six movement subtitles for a piano quintet commissioned by and performed at the Library of Congress, and appears in the Telepoem Booth, a multi-state installation art project.
Anna Morrison is a writer, filmmaker and professor in the University of Iowa’s Cinematic Arts program. Long Exposure (2023), her first book of poems, won the Moon City Poetry Prize. Her work can be read in many literary journals, including Best American Poetry and Narrative and The Georgia Review, and has been nominated for recognitions including the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She co-edits the online journal of poetry and art two peach.
Each of these poets works at the intersection of genres and creative forms, helping us rethink what poetry is and does. All of them actively contribute to a thriving literary community in Iowa and beyond. This opportunity to hear four exciting poets in conversation is appropriate for anyone with an interest in poetry or curiosity about the writing life; all are welcome.