Name: August Featured Poet: Khalil Elayan
Start: 2026-08-03T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-08-03T20:30:00-05:00
Location: Plenty Downtown Bookshop

Sawmill Poetry is on hiatus until August 3, 2026, but we have planned a marvelous event to open our fall season!
In August, we welcome Khalil Elayan, whose new book Of Meadows and Echoes: The Yearning for Soft Spaces (Kelsay Books, 2026) evokes the wildness and divinity of the natural world with clarity and depth. Poet Chen Chen calls Of Meadows and Echoes "reminiscent of Seamus Heaney’s deftly musical lines and Li-Young Lee’s piercing imagery" and notes that Elayan's poems "astonish, soothe, provoke, caress, swerve, and burn a strange brightness."
Khalil Elayan is a Senior Lecturer of English at Kennesaw State University, teaching mostly World and African American Literature. He received his Ph.D. from Georgia State University, focusing on Modern American and Comparative literatures. Along with poetry, his other interests include writing shorts stories, creative nonfiction, and spending time in nature on his farm in north Georgia tending to his blackberries and pepper plants. Khalil’s poems have been published in Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, The Black Fork Review, About Place Journal, and The Esthetic Apostle. Khalil’s most recent creative nonfiction appears in Talking Writing and his short story “No Quedo Mas Nada” was shortlisted for the Vincent Brothers Review Annual Short Story Contest and has just been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Most of his work focuses on the natural environment, climate change, and trauma poetry, giving voice to places and people who may cry out unheard.
Elayan's reading will be followed by an open mic. Poetry, spoken word, dramatic monologue, short prose, and songs are all welcome. Plenty is located at 41 W. Broad St. in Cookeville. Arrive by 6:45 to sign up to perform.