Join us for a reading celebrating new book releases by Poetry Foundation staff and friends: Adrian Matejka, Maggie Queeney, Charif Shanahan, and Patricia Smith. Get to know some of the people behind the Foundation’s programs, including Poetry magazine.

This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream.

Adrian Matejka is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently Somebody Else Sold the World, which was a finalist for the 2022 Rilke Prize as well as the 2022 Indiana Authors Award. Matejka’s first graphic novel, Last On His Feet, was published in February 2023. He is the editor of Poetry magazine.

Maggie Queeney is the author of In Kind, winner of the 2022 Iowa Poetry Prize, and the chapbook settler. Queeney is the recipient of the 2019 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago, and a scholarship from the Ruth Stone Foundation. Her most recent work can be found in The Kenyon Review, Guernica, The Missouri Review, and The American Poetry Review. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University and reads and writes in Chicago. She is the Library Associate at the Poetry Foundation.

Charif Shanahan is the author of two collections of poetry: Trace Evidence: poems and Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and a Thom Gunn Award. Shanahan is the recipient of a NEA Literature Fellowship, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, and a Fulbright Senior Scholar Grant to Morocco, among other recognitions. He is an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University, where he teaches poetry in the undergraduate and Litowitz MFA+MA graduate creative writing programs. He is a guest editor of Poetry magazine.

Patricia Smith, the 2021 recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, is the author of Unshuttered and Incendiary Art, among other collections. Smith is the winner of a Kingsley Tufts Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a NAACP Image Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her book Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah won a Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and Blood Dazzler was a National Book Award finalist. She is a creative writing professor at Princeton University, a distinguished professor for the City University of New York, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a chancellor in the Academy of American Poets.

In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. If you will not comply with this requirement, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.

Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance here.

The Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.

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Tags: Adrian Matejka, Charif Shanahan, Chicago, Maggie Queeney, Near North SidePatricia Smith, Poetry Foundation, The Poetry Foundation