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Union Ave Books is excited to present poets Jane Hicks and Susan Underwood reading from their books The Safety of Small Things and Splinter, respectively. This event will take place on Friday, June 7th at 6pm at our bookstore. This is a free event. Please RSVP via the ticket link.ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A native of upper East Tennessee, Jane Hicks is an award-winning poet and quilter. The Jesse Stuart Foundation published her first book, Blood and Bone Remember: Poems from Appalachia in 2005. The book met with popular and critical acclaim, winning the Appalachian Writers Association Poetry Book of the Year prize. It was also nominated for the Weatherford Award given by the Appalachian Studies Association. Jane’s poetry has frequently appeared in journals and literary magazines in the southeast, notably Wind, Now & Then, Appalachian Journal, Appalachian Heritage, Asheville Poetry review, and Shenandoah. Her poems have been anthologized in Migrants and Stowaways and Literary Lunch published by the Knoxville Writers Guild, Crossing Troublesome 25 years of the Appalachian Writers Workshop, Coal: A Poetry Anthology, We All Live Downstream: Writings About Mountaintop Removal, Southern Poetry Anthology: Contemporary Appalachia, Southern Poetry Anthology: Tennessee, and Southern Poetry Anthology: Virginia. Her work appeared in an anthology of poetry with connections to the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins. Her “literary quilts” illustrate the works of playwright Jo Carson and novelists Sharyn McCrumb and Silas House. The art quilts have toured with these respective authors and were the subject of a feature in Blue Ridge Country Magazine in an issue devoted to arts in the region. Jane retired from Sullivan County, Tennessee schools after thirty years of teaching. Her second poetry book, published in the fall of 2014 by the University Press of Kentucky, is titled Driving with the Dead. It also won the Appalachian Writers Association Poetry Book of the Year (2015) and was a finalist for the Weatherford Award. Her critically acclaimed third book, The Safety of Small Things, was published by the University of Kentucky Press under Hindman's Fireside Press imprint in early 2024.
Susan O'Dell Underwood is originally from Bristol, Tennessee. She recently retired from teaching creative writing and other courses at Carson-Newman University. Her novel GENESIS ROAD and poetry collection SPLINTER were published by Madville.
ABOUT THE BOOKS
The Safety of Small Things meditates on mortality from a revealing perspective. Images of stark examination rooms, the ravages of chemotherapy, biopsies, and gel-soaked towels entwine with remembrance to reveal grace and even beauty where they are least expected. Jane Hicks captures contemporary Appalachia in all of its complexities: the world she presents constantly demonstrates how the past and the present (and even the future) mingle unexpectedly. The poems in this powerful collection juxtapose the splendor and revelation of nature and science, the circle of life, how family and memory give honor to those we've lost, and how they can all fit together. This lyrical and contemplative yet provocative collection sings a song of lucidity, redemption, and celebration.
On a collective level, the human diaspora is incalculable. Our leaving and resettling are as ancient as we are, whether immigrant, refugee, exile, or pioneer. In Splinter, Susan O’Dell Underwood’s poems trace the unique experiences of the Appalachian diaspora. Splinter suggests the deep ambivalence in the breaking away, a sundering which can never be mended. These poems test the emotional spectrum, weighing the joyful possibilities and sorrows of leaving against the obligation of those who stay “home,” grateful yet bereft in an altered place.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
517 Union Ave, Knoxville, TN, United States, Tennessee 37902
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