HIGH POINT, N.C., Jan. 17, 2014 – High Point University will host two nationally acclaimed poets as part of the Phoenix Reading Series. Bill Rasmovicz and Carrie Olivia Adams will hold a reading, Q&A session and book signing at 7 p.m. Jan. 30 in the Francis Auditorium of Phillips Hall, with a reception following the presentation. The event is free and open to the public; tickets are not required.
“The English Department is honored to hosts these two talented poets,” says Dr. Jacob Paul, assistant professor of English who helped organize the event. “Each has published two books of poetry and has a third slated for release within the year. They’re innovative poets whose work we are excited to hear.”
The event, sponsored by HPU’s English department, is part of the Phoenix Reading Series, a new extension of the four-decade-old Phoenix Festival at HPU.
Rasmovicz’s first collection, “The World in Place of Itself,” won the Sheila Margaret Motton Award and the Kinereth Gensler Award. He has written two other full-length collections, “Gross Ardor,” currently available from 42 Mile Press, and “Idiopaths,” forthcoming this year. His poems have appeared in Hotel Amerika, Hunger Mountain, Nimrod, Mid-American Review, Third Coast, Gulf Coast, BODY and other publications. He has served as a workshop co-leader and literary excursion leader throughout Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, England, Wales and the Czech Republic. He received a Master of Fine Arts in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Adams lives in Chicago, where she is a professional book publicist for the University of Chicago Press, and the poetry editor for the small press Black Ocean. She is the author of “Intervening Absence,” “Forty-One Jane Doe’s” and “A Useless Window.” Her poems have appeared in such journals as Cannibal, DIAGRAM, the Laurel Review, Horse Less Review, Slope and more.