Poetry reading with Ann Hudson, Liz Ahl, and Joanne Diaz

On Wednesday, Oct. 20th at 6:30 PM, The Book Stall is pleased to present an online program, with poets Ann Hudson, Liz Ahl, and Joanne Diaz reading in celebration of Hudson’s new book of poetry, Glow. This virtual event is free and open to the public.

Evanston-based poet Ann Hudson’s Glow investigates the mystery of radium: the vision of Marie Curie who discovered it through labor and sheer will; its rise to fame as a health craze; the critically important work it did for the medical field; and its widespread use in luminescent paint, which made watches glow in the dark. These poems explore how one luminous substance—the hunt for it, the search for its secrets and powers—can be understood as a life force of its own, even as it has the power to whittle that life force to nothing. These poems depict radium as a destructive force as well as an illuminating presence.

Ralph Hamilton, author of Teaching a Man to Unstick His Tail, says of Glow, “In crisp, compelling and often ironic lines, Ann Hudson’s Glow paints Marie Curie’s drive, courage and genius, as well as the troubling side-effects of her scientific work with radium. These poems capture the disturbing interface between science and industry, exploiting the cultural mystique surrounding the newly discovered element. The Promethean bargain at the center of these poems speaks to the tangled mesh of ambition, hope, hubris, and sometimes delusion that attends any great human venture.”

About the poets: Ann Hudson is the author of The Armillary Sphere, which was selected by Mary Kinzie as the winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize and published by Ohio University Press. A senior editor for Rhino, she teaches at a Montessori school in Evanston, Illinois.

Liz Ahl is the author of Beating the Bounds (Hobblebush Books, 2017), Home Economics (Seven Kitchens Press, 2016), Talking About the Weather (Seven Kitchens Press, 2012), Luck (Pecan Grove Press, 2010), and A Thirst That’s Partly Mine (winner of the 2008 Slapering Hol Press chapbook contest). She teaches writing at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Joanne Diaz is the author of the poetry collections My Favorite Tyrants (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014) and The Lessons (Silverfish Review Press, 2011), and with Ian Morris, the co-editor of The Little Magazine in Contemporary America (University of Chicago Press, 2015). A native of Massachusetts, she teaches in the English Department at Illinois Wesleyan University.