{"id":4143,"date":"2024-03-31T16:00:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-31T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=4143"},"modified":"2024-03-31T16:00:34","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T20:00:34","slug":"the-poets-are-coming-the-poets-are-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2024\/03\/31\/the-poets-are-coming-the-poets-are-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poets Are Coming, The Poets Are Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Given that April is National Poetry Month, I think it is fitting to focus this week\u2019s Storied Charlotte blog post on the upcoming visits to Charlotte by two nationally known poets\u2014Nathan McClain and Jericho Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan McClain will give a poetry reading on Thursday, April 4, from 4:00 – 5:15 p.m. in Atkins Library’s Halton Reading Room on the main UNC Charlotte campus. McClain will read from his work, followed by an audience Q&A and book signing.  One of the organizers of this event is Allison Hutchcraft, who is a creative writing professor at UNC Charlotte.  I contacted Allison and asked her for more information about this event. Here is what she sent to me:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Acclaimed poet Nathan McClain will visit UNC Charlotte on Thursday, April 4, visiting Allison Hutchcraft\u2019s <\/em>Intermediate Poetry Writing class (who recently finished reading McClain\u2019s latest book of poems) and give a campus reading of his work in Atkins Library\u2019s Halton Reading Room from 4:00 \u2013 5:15 p.m.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan McClain (he\/him) is the author of two collections of poetry: <\/em>Previously Owned (Four Way Books, 2022), longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and <\/em>Scale (Four Way Books, 2017). He is a recipient of fellowships from The Frost Place, the Sewanee Writers\u2019 Conference, and Bread Loaf Writers\u2019 Conference and is a Cave Canem fellow. He earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College. His poems and prose have appeared in <\/em>Plume Poetry 10, <\/em>The Common, <\/em>Guesthouse, <\/em>Poetry Northwest, and <\/em>Z\u00f3calo Public Square, among others. He teaches at Hampshire College and serves as poetry editor of the <\/em>Massachusetts Review.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of<\/em> Previously Owned, poet Diane Seuss has said, \u201cThe opening poem of Nathan McClain\u2019s <\/em>Previously Owned operates like the legend of a map, a key to the book\u2019s existential topography. The poem\u2019s presenting subject is a Roman sculpture of a boy pulling a thorn from his foot, or \u2018not pulling \/ rather, about to pull.\u2019 McClain addresses the self via the second person, and draws in the reader, too, as observer: \u2018and here you \/ are, looking,\u2019 witness to the boy\u2019s \u2018insistent grief.\u2019 \u2018And what \/\/ have you learned from \/ standing here so long examining pain?\u2019 <\/em>Previously Owned exists in this incremental space\u2014the about to pull, the almost, the grief, the tenderness, the examination, and the distance. It\u2019s a masterstroke in a masterful collection, in which a speaker of a nuanced intelligence and lush interiority reflects upon the American landscape, its pastoral and judicial and historical duplicity entwined with racial alienation and violence. McClain has written a collection of sculptural artfulness\u2014through which the thorn of grief thrums still.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poet Tommye Blount has said, \u201cIn <\/em>Previously Owned, America\u2019s dark history is not quaintly rooted in the past, but dangerously ever-present. \u2018And what \/ have you learned from \/ standing here so long \/ examining pain?\u2019 Nathan McClain questions in the opening poem \u2018Boy Pulling a Thorn from His Foot\u2019\u2014not just the reader\u2014himself as witness. If <\/em>Scale, his first collection, can be said to be anchored in domestic space, then <\/em>Previously Owned expands the architecture of that domestic space to include Country and the country. The ways in which McClain troubles the pastoral and peripatetic traditions thrills me: \u2018I\u2019ve never actually seen a moose, \/ only signs warning of moose, \/ and NO PASSING ZONE signs\u2019 (\u2018Where the View Was Clearer\u2019); and of the fireflies in \u2018Now that I live in this part of the country,\u2019 \u2018look, they \/ flash the way hazard \/ lights sometimes flash\u2026 \/ and I might have said, no, \/ don\u2019t they seem to pulse \/ with the glow of old \/ grievances?\u2019 This book is a triumph and will be talked about for years. Nathan McClain is one of the most daring poets I know.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jericho Brown will perform and discuss his poetry as part of Charlotte Lit\u2019s annual Lit Up! celebration on Wednesday, May 1 from 6:00-8:30 at Not Just Coffee, 1026 Jay Street, in Charlotte.  This is a ticketed event, and reservations are required.  The following information about this event is from Charlotte\u2019s Lit\u2019s website:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Join Charlotte Lit and Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown on May 1 for Lit Up! 2024, as we celebrate eight years serving the literary arts community. Jericho performs his work, then joins Charlotte Lit Press author AE Hines and audience members in a thought-provoking conversation. Enjoy live music, a wide selection of beverages, and hors d\u2019oeuvres by Something Classic. 6:00-8:30 pm, Not Just Coffee, Jay Street.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ticket Options:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n