Join poets Kathleen S. Burgess and R. Nikolas Macioci for an exclusive joint reading of their recent collections.
Burgess will read from What Burden Do Those Trains Bear Away: A Memoir in Poems. From 1971 through 1972, Kathleen S. Burgess traveled with her boyfriend—hitchhiking, riding buses, trains, and boats—from Washington, D.C., to Lima, Peru. Adventures with people they encountered or lived with comprise this memoir in poetry with its backdrop of the Vietnam War and subplot of social justice. A retired public school music teacher, Burgess is a senior editor of Pudding Magazine. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in North American Review, Cigar City Poetry Journal, Malpaís Review, Sou'wester, Central American Literary Review. She won a national Confluence Award for poetry and numerous Ohio awards. In addition to her new book, she has written Shaping What Was Left, Gardening with Wallace Stevens, and edited the anthology Reeds and Rushes—Pitch, Buzz, and Hum. The Wonder Cupboard will be published in 2019.
R. Nikolas Macioci will read from his recent collection, Necessary Windows. He earned a PhD from The Ohio State University, and for thirty years taught for the Columbus City Schools. In addition to English, he taught Drama and developed a Writers Seminar for select students. OCTELA, the Ohio Council of Teachers of English, named Macioci the best secondary English teacher in the state of Ohio. He is the author of two chapbooks: Cafes of Childhood and Greatest Hits, as well as two books: Why Dance and Cafes of Childhood (the original chapbook with additional poems). Critics and judges called Cafes of Childhooda "beautifully harrowing account of child abuse," but not "sentimental" or "self-pitying." In addition, more than two hundred of Macioci's poems have been published here and abroad in magazines and journals, including The Society of Classical Poets Journal, Chiron, Clark Street Review, and Blue Unicorn.