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Join us for an evening of poetry that moves between the living and the dead. Poets Mildred Kiconco Barya and Lee Stockdale will share work that conjures ghosts both personal and ancestral, haunting and strange without being frightening. Together, they’ll explore how the spirit world reveals itself in dreams, in family histories, and even in the natural world. This reading and conversation invites you to consider how poetry transforms ghosts of many forms into art.Mildred Kiconco Barya, a North Carolina-based writer and poet of East African descent, teaches and lectures globally. Hands in Clay is her fifth full-length poetry collection. Her previous poetry books include The Animals of My Earth School (Terrapin Books), which was listed among Brittle Paper Notable African Books of 2023 and received honorable mention in the 2024 Eric Hoffer Poetry Award. Barya is the recipient of the 2025 Jacobs/Jones African American Literary Prize and the 2020 Linda Flowers Literary Award. She has served as the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the North Carolina Poetry Society and her work is published in the New England Review, The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, Tin House, The Forge, and elsewhere. She coordinates the Poetrio Reading events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café and blogs at www.mildredbarya.com
Lee Stockdale has won the United Kingdom National Poetry Prize, Montana Prize for Humor, Sidney Lanier Poetry Prize, and Atlanta Review International Merit Award, among others. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Poetry Review, Ekphrastic Review, Whitefish Review, anthologies, and other journals. His debut collection, Gorilla, was published by Main Street Rag. Finishing Line Press will bring out his chapbook, Bronxville, in 2026. His BA is from the University of Washington and his MFA is from Queens University, Charlotte. The North Carolina Poetry Society recently named Lee a Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet. Lee and his wife, both veterans, live in Fairview, North Carolina, and love the Fairview Library.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
1 Taylor Rd, Fairview, NC, United States, North Carolina 28730
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