Award-winning poets to read at SRPR Lucia Getsi Poetry Reading, April 23 – News

Award-winning poets Victoria Chang and Ali Beheler will visit Bloomington-Normal for the annual SRPR Lucia Getsi Poetry Reading on Wednesday, April 23. The poetry reading is at 7 p.m. at the Normal Theater in Uptown Normal. A book signing will follow the reading. Chang has received several awards for her poetry, including the Forward Prize for Best Collection of Poetry, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award, among others. Ali Beheler is the winner of the 2024 SRPR Editors’ Prize for her poem “Everything Is Prep Work.”

At 4 p.m. on April 23 in the Beckman Auditorium in the Ames Library at Illinois Wesleyan University, Chang will be in conversation with IWU professor, Dr. Michael Theune. Both events are free and open to the public.

Local bookseller Bobzbay Books will have copies of Victoria Chang’s books available for preorder and for purchase at the event. Secure a copy by preordering, with pickup at the conversation or reading on April 23.

ABOUT THE POETS

VICTORIA CHANG’s latest book of poems, With My Back to the World was published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and Corsair Books in the U.K., and received the Forward Prize for Best Collection of Poetry, was named a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, Lithub, and Electric Literature. Her most recent book of poetry, The Trees Witness Everything, was published by Copper Canyon Press and Corsair Books in the U.K. in 2022, and was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by the New Yorker and The Guardian.

Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions), was published in 2021 and was named a favorite nonfiction book of 2021 by Electric Literature and Kirkus. OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), her book of poems, was named a New York Times Notable Book, a Time Must-Read Book, and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was also longlisted for a National Book Award and named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. She has written several children’s books as well. She has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Chowdhury Prize in Literature. She serves as the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and as the director of Poetry@Tech. Her poems have been translated into many languages including Italian, Chinese, Spanish, Romanian, Greek, and Dutch.

ALI BEHELER is a poet, essayist, and educator. Her work can be found in Up the Staircase Quarterly, Broad River Review, Neologism, Plainsongs, The Corpus Callosum, and elsewhere. An honorable mention recipient in Broad River Review’s Rash Poetry Awards (2024), she attended The Kenyon Review’s juried Online Summer Writer’s Workshop in Poetry (2023) and has been a writer-in-residence at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in Temecula, California. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, and raised on the coasts of North Carolina, Florida, and Maryland, she is an alumna of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Penn State, and DePaul University, where she received a Ph.D. in philosophy. She currently teaches at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska, where she can be found following the paw-steps of sweet Emmylou.

ABOUT THE SRPR LUCIA GETSI READING SERIES

Established and endowed in 2013 by longtime SRPR editor and Illinois State University Distinguished Professor Emerita Lucia Getsi, the SRPR Lucia Getsi Reading Series is one of the premier poetry events in Central Illinois. Past readers have included John Keene, Marissa Davis, Jerome Rothenberg, Kristin Prevallet, Rachel Jamison Webster, Chloe Garcia Roberts, Ruben Quesada, Ann Hudson, Roger Reeves, Julie Marie Wade, Jonah Mixon-Webster, Ewa Chrusciel, Emma Bolden, Monica Hand, Jason Bredle, Jacob Saenz, Bill Stobb, Joshua Corey, and many others.

EVENT SPONSORS

The SRPR Lucia Getsi Poetry Reading is made possible by the Harold K. Sage Fund and the Illinois State University Foundation, Lucia Getsi, SRPR, the Publications Unit, the Department of English at Illinois State University, and the Department of English at Illinois Wesleyan University.

If you need an accommodation to fully participate in this program/event, please contact Steve Halle at (309) 438-7481 or publicationsunit@IllinoisState.edu. Please allow sufficient time to arrange the accommodation.