Observable Readings

Poets Norman Finkelstein, Tyrone Williams, and Steven Schreiner to read at Schlafly Bottleworks Sept. 10

Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 08:00 PM: Norman Finkelstein, Tyrone Williams, and Steven Schreiner

Cincinnati poets Norman Finkelstein and Tyrone Williams along  with St. Louis poet  Steven Schreiner will read from their work at 8 p.m. on Thursday, September 10, at the Schlafly Bottleworks on 7260 Southwest Ave. in Maplewood to begin the 2009-2010 Observable Readings series. Admission to these monthly readings is free.

Norman Finkelstein, a professor of English literature at Xavier University, has written six volumes of poetry: Restless Messengers, Passing Over, a three-volume serial poem titled Track, andScribe, scheduled for publication this year. He has been described by poet Burt Kimmelman as a "major voice articulating, with grace, Jewish identity." Finkelstein also has written four volumes of literary criticism, with a fifth, titled On Mount Vision: Forms of the Sacred in Contemporary American Poetry, coming out in 2010 from the University of Iowa Press.

Tyrone Williams, a professor of English literature professor at Xavier University, is the author of two poetry collections-On Spec  and c.c. Williams also has a number of chapbooks, including AAB,Musique Noir, Convalescence, and  Futures, Elections. His work has been anthologized in Rainbow Darkness: An Anthology of African American Poetry and Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present.

Steven Schreiner is an associate professor of English literature at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who teaches in its MFA creative writing program. He is the author of a poetry collection titledToo Soon to Leave and a chapbook titled Imposing Presence.  Schreiner is the founding editor of the journal Natural Bridge.

"The 2009-2010 season of Observable Readings picks up on several strands established by the series in the first five years" says Observable co-curator Jeff Hamilton, a lecturer in English literature at Washington University in St. Louis. "During that time, Observable offered emerging poets an audience for their work by providing a forum assembled through the aegis of St. Louis writers with whom they shared the bill. This local audience of poetry lovers is steady, reflecting month after month on our hunger for a place outside area universities where poetry can be listened to, and its social networks extended. In a word, Observed."

Observable Readings, sponsored by the St. Louis Poetry Center (www.stlouispoetrycenter.org), is funded in part by the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission and the Missouri Arts Council.