Poetry Reading with Katie Farris

At the oncologist’s office, a man stares. I stare back 
until he says, “People must stare at you.”

Why bother closing a door
when everyone demands it open?

I go to the world with my tongue out
and my shirt unbuttoned, my keys 

in the lock,
a six-inch scar instead of a nipple—

how can a watchtower hide?
I am well-positioned to seek out

fires and invading hoards—
my bald head the beacon the first

alarm.

Following the reading, there will be a reception and book signing.

Katie Farris’s most recent book, Standing in the Forest of Being Alive, from Alice James Books (US) and Liverpool University Press (UK), was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Poetry Prize and listed as Publisher’s Weekly’s Top 10 Poetry Books for 2023. She’s also the author of the hybrid-form text boysgirls (Marick Press, 2011; Tupelo Press 2019), and the co-translator of many works, including A Country in Which Everyone’s Name is Fear, which was one of World Literature Today’s Notable Books of 2022. She’s a Pushcart Prize winner.