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Release: Feb. 21, 2002

Poet Forrest Gander reads on WSUI's 'Live from Prairie Lights' March 7

Forrest Gander, one of America's leading experimental poets, will read from his latest book, "Torn Awake" (2001), at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 7 in the Prairie Lights bookstore at 15 S. Dubuque St. in downtown Iowa City. The free reading, co-sponsored by the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, will be broadcast on the "Live from Prairie Lights" series, originating on UI radio station WSUI, AM 910.

Donald Revell wrote of Gander in the Colorado Review, "His sharp sense of place has made him the most earthly of our avant-garde, the best geographer of fleshly sites since (Charles) Olson."

Gander is the editor of "Mouth to Mouth," a bilingual anthology of contemporary Mexican poets, and the author of five volumes of poetry. Two books of his translations, "No Shelter: Selected Poems of Pura Lopez Colome" and "Immanent Visitor: The Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz," will be published this year.

He has been the recipient of two Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative North American Writing, a Whiting Award for Writers and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Yaddo artist colony.

His critical essays have appeared in periodicals including the Nation, the Boston Review and the Providence Journal. With poet C. D. Wright, he edits Lost Roads Publishers.

Gander's teaching experiences have included faculty positions at Harvard University, Brown University and Providence College.

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