April brings National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate the art that captures memory, music, place, and possibility. This year, we are honoring the written and spoken word with programs that highlight both local literary voices and new ways to experience poetry.
Whether you're a devoted poetry reader, a curious newcomer, or someone discovering poetry for the first time, there’s something for you throughout the month.
All Over the Page: A Special Evening with Poet Jesse Graves
April 13 | 6:30 | Lawson McGhee Library -- third floor classroom
All Over the Page is the Library’s monthly evening book discussion group for adults, featuring a guest facilitator who leads an engaging conversation about a featured title.
This April, in honor of National Poetry Month, we are delighted to welcome Jesse Graves, Poet‑in‑Residence at East Tennessee State University. Graves will read from his celebrated collection Merciful Days and guide an exploration of its themes: memory, landscape, loss, the natural world, and the stories that shape us.
About Merciful Days
Graves’s fourth collection blends the lyrical and the plainspoken, capturing the “mythic beauty” of the East Tennessee landscape and the deep emotional currents that run through family, place, and time. The poems observe hawks circling, wild ginger leaves curling, and wind shifting across still water—interwoven with elegies and celebrations, and with haunting recollections of lives cut short and futures imagined.
About Jesse Graves
Graves is the author of five poetry collections and a book of prose, and his honors include the James Still Award, the Philip H. Freund Prize, and two Weatherford Awards. He has also co‑edited multiple volumes of The Southern Poetry Anthology and The Complete Poetry of James Agee.
Local Chapter: A Conversation with Linda Parsons
April 25 | 2:00 | Burlington Branch Library
National Poetry Month continues with Local Chapter, featuring Linda Parsons, Poet Laureate of Knoxville. She is also the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville. She is an eighth-generation Tennessean.
This event offers an opportunity to hear Parsons read from her work and reflect on the craft and calling of poetry.
The Beat: A Poetry Podcast from Knox County Public Library
Celebrate National Poetry Month wherever you are with The Beat, our poetry podcast, hosted by Alan May. The Beat features contemporary poets reading their work—offering an intimate, immediate way to experience poetry in the poet’s own voice.
The latest episode spotlights Matt Broaddus, author of Deeper the Tropics and Temporal Anomalies. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Annulet, Denver Quarterly, and The Paris Review. He lives in Colorado and serves as an Advisory Poetry Editor for The Paris Review.
- "'Blue Prints' and Other Poems" at Changes
- "The Seal of Approval" at American Poetry Review
- "The Sun Is a Disembodied Thought: An Interview with Matt Broaddus" at Poetry Daily
- "These Lit Particulars: On Matt Broaddus’ Deeper the Tropics" at Cleveland Review of Books
Explore all Knox County Public Library podcasts, including The Beat.
Verse-atile reads
Prefer to peruse a poem at your own pace? Check out a selection of books, ebooks, audiobooks, movies, and music related to poets and their craft in our catalog.
National Poetry Month invites us to slow down, listen closely, and rediscover the power of language. We hope you’ll join us throughout April for readings, conversations, and creative discovery—both in person and on the airwaves.
National Poetry Month celebrates 30 years! Launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, it has become one of the largest literary celebration in the world.