Poets Cole Swensen and Cal Bedient, former faculty members of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, will present a free reading at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, in Prairie Lights Books and on a Virtual Writing University live stream.

Swensen’s new book is Gravesend, from the New California Poetry series. The poems in Gravesend explore ghosts as instances of collective grief and guilt, as cultural constructs evolved to elide or to absorb a given society's actions, as well as, at times, to fill the gaps between such actions and the desires and intentions of its individual citizens.

Swensen is the author of 10 previous books of poetry including Goest, which was a National Book Award Finalist.

Her work has won the Iowa Poetry Prize, the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award, the New American Writing Award, and the National Poetry Series.

She has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Creative Capital grant, as well as grants from the French Bureau des Livres and Association Beaumarchais for her translations. In 2004, she won the PEN USA Award in Literary Translation.

She is the editor of Noise That Stays Noise: Essays; the co-editor, with David St. John, of the 2009 Norton anthology American Hybrid; and the founder and editor of La Presse Books, which publishes contemporary French poetry translated by English-language poets.

The Multiple is the new book by Bedient, who is an emeritus faculty member at UCLA. He has written several books of literary criticism in addition to his poetry collections.

He is a co-editor of the University of California's New California Poetry Series and of Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry & Opinion.

The Writers’ Workshop is a unit of the UI Graduate College and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. For accommodations at the live event contact jan@prairielights.com. For a UI arts calendar and details about upcoming events, visit the new Arts Iowa website.