Iowa City poet James McKean will read from his new collection of poetry, We Are the Bus, winner of the 2011 X.J. Kennedy Prize, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City. The reading also will be streamed live on the University of Iowa Writing University website.

We Are the Bus travels the world in 42 poems—from Hat Island in Puget Sound to Oaxaca’s zocalo to the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. In language simple, precise, and musical, the poems revisit the complexities of growing up and moving on. We Are the Bus tells stories full of people—telescope makers and fisherman, neighbors, travelers and family, high divers and tired pilgrims, Norwegian horseshoe players and American mothers-in-law. Vivid details and surprising events give authority to the language as each poem moves from memory and observation toward clarity and song.

McKean was born in Seattle, and played basketball for Washington State University. He earned an Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a doctorate in English from the UI. He is the author of two previous collections of poems, Headlong and Tree of Heaven, and a book of essays, Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports. A professor emeritus of Mount Mercy University, Jim continues to teach in the M.F.A. program at Queens University in Charlotte. He will be inducted into the Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Hall of Honor on March 16 in Las Vegas.

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

For more information or special accommodations to attend this reading, call Jan Weissmiller at Prairie Lights, 319-337-2681. For a UI arts calendar and details about upcoming events visit the new Arts Iowa website.