Poet Jim Moore to Read Tuesday Night

Please join us Tuesday night (April 19th) at 7 pm to hear Jim Moore read from his newest collection of poetry, Invisible Strings, published by Graywolf Press. Moore is the author of six previous collections of poetry, including Lightning at Dinner, The Freedom of History, and The Long Experience of Love. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, the Nation, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Threepenny Review, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and in many other magazines and anthologies.  He has received numerous awards and fellowships from the Bush Foundation, The Loft, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Moore grew up in Illinois and began writing in the mid 1960s. He spent ten months in prison during the Vietnam War for refusing induction. Currently he teaches at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and at The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, as well as online through the University of Minnesota Split Rock Arts Program.  He is married to the photographer JoAnn Verburg.  They live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Spoleto, Italy.

The poems in his newest collection are brief, jagged, almost haiku-like. One reviewer called them "tricky masterpieces of revelation," and another said that Moore "elevates economy of phrase to an art." The author says the poems, which address "ordinary everyday kinds of moments and why they matter," came out of a time in his life when he was very busy, traveling a lot, with much disjointedness in his life. After his last book, Lightning at Dinner, which was a more narrative collection about the death of his mother, the author said he wanted to experiment with writing shorter, quicker pieces.

In a recent interview Moore said, "Oddly enough, I often feel more connected to the world (feel less distance from it) when I am in solitude than when I am with others."  Regarding the influences on his work, he said, "Anything that takes me out of myself is a major blessing and important  influence:  passion, love, nature, particular cities (Venice, Calcutta, New York, Spoleto) and places.  Blizzards work beautifully this way, as do mountains, the sea, the plains, certain rivers…anything that reminds me forcefully that my own ego is not the be all and end all.  Of course, poems by poets I love do that very well." 

We hope you can join us to hear Jim Moore read from and discuss his latest collection of poems. And don't forget that we're still celebrating National Poetry Month here at Broadway Books: For each book of poetry you buy at regular price, you can buy a second book (of equal or lesser value) for HALF PRICE! You can do this all month long, because we're nuts for poetry here. Or maybe we're just nuts.