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Open House Poetry Reading: Matt Hart, Lauren Haldeman, Skylar Alexander, and Izzy Casey

  • 229 North Gilbert Street Iowa City, IA, 52245 United States (map)

Join us for an open house poetry reading at our new space (229 N Gilbert) featuring visiting poet Matt Hart and IC’s own Lauren Haldeman, Skylar Alexander, and Izzy Casey.

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Matt Hart is the author of nine books of poems, including most recently Everything Breaking/for Good (YesYes Books, 2019) and The Obliterations (Pickpocket Books, 2019). Additionally, his poems, reviews, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous print and online journals, including The Academy of American Poets online, Big Bell, Cincinnati Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Harvard Review, jubilat, Kenyon Review online, Lungfull!, Mississippi Review, Ovenbird, POETRY, and Waxwing, among others. His awards include a Pushcart Prize, a 2013 individual artist grant from The Shifting Foundation, and fellowships from both the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. A co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety, he lives in Cincinnati where he teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and plays in the band NEVERNEW: www.nevernew.net.

Lauren Haldeman is the author of Instead of Dying (winner of the 2017 Colorado Prize for Poetry), Calenday, and The Eccentricity is Zero. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, Tin House, The Colorado Review, The Iowa Review, Fence, Tupelo Quarterly, among others. A graphic novelist and poet, she’s received an Iowa Arts Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award and fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. You can find her online at http://laurenhaldeman.com

Skylar Alexander is a writer, teacher, and graphic designer living in Iowa City, Iowa. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in Cutbank; Smokelong Quarterly; Hobart; Poetry City, USA; PromptPress; Mantra; Beholder; Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, and Light Industrial Safety, and many other places. Recently, she became the lead designer for Poet Lore, America's oldest poetry journal, and designed the Iowa Writers' House's We The Interwoven series. She curates TroubADORE, a lifestyle blog for writers eager to develop a sustainable, healthy writing practice. Her first poetry collection, Searching for PetCo, is forthcoming from Forklift Books.

Izzy Casey is a poet from Los Angeles. Her poems have been published in or are forthcoming from Gulf Coast, Bennington Review, BOAAT, New York Tyrant, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is an editor for the University of Iowa Prison Writing Project. She is a current recipient of a fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.