University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates Karla Kelsey and Endi Bogue Hartigan will read from their new books of poetry from Omnidawn Press at 7 p.m. Friday, April 18, in a free reading at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City. The reading also will be streamed live on the University of Iowa Writing University website.

Kelsey will read from A Conjoined Book, which hinges together two new volumes—Aftermath and Become Tree, Become Bird—to create a meditation on the nature of “aboutness.”

Christian Hawkey says, “This conjoined book—these coordinating clauses—maps in structure and theme the essentially gothic architecture of affect. Which is to say: of reading itself. I couldn't put it down.... the reader always changes. Pass it on.”

Kelsey is the author of Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary and Iteration Nets. She edits and writes for The Constant Critic, and co-directs SplitLevel Texts. She is on the creative writing faculty at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania.

Bogue Hartigan will read from Pool [5 choruses], which was selected by Cole Swensen for the 2012 Omnidawn Open Poetry Book Prize. She is the author of One Sun Storm and a chapbook titled out of the flowering ribs. She works in communications for the public university system in Portland, Ore.

G.C. Waldrep says of Pool, "These gorgeous poems are exercises in presence apposed not to absence but to ‘slippage,’ change, diminution, that humming, hymning poverty ... the political is frankly flush with the lush landscape of phenomena: of lily and pine, of camellia, of roses and starlings, any of which might conceal an election or an economy or a war."

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is a graduate program in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to attend this reading,call Jan Weissmiller at Prairie Lights in advance at 319-337-2681.

For a UI arts calendar and details about upcoming events visit the Arts Iowa website.