Nickole Brown & Jessica Jacobs at Asheville Poetry Series, May 20

Press release from Asheville Poetry Series:

Asheville Poetry Series proudly presents a reading of new works TO THOSE WHO WERE OUR FIRST GODS (Rattle) by Nickole Brown and TAKE ME WITH YOU, WHEREVER YOU’RE GOING (Four Way) by Jessica Jacobs, and the authors will present new unpublished poems, take questions, and sign books.

Doors 7:00 P.M. Reading starts 7:30 P.M. | OPEN MIC after feature reading | beverages and books sold | $5 donation at door

About the Poets

NICKOLE BROWN received her MFA from the Vermont College, studied literature at Oxford University, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson. She worked at Sarabande Books for ten years. Her first collection, Sister, a novel-in-poems, was first published in 2007 by Red Hen Press and a new edition will be reissued by Sibling Rivalry Press in October 2018. Her second book, a biography-in-poems called Fanny Says, came out from BOA Editions in 2015, and the audio book of that collection became available in 2017. She was an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for four years until she gave up her beloved time in the classroom in hope of writing full time. Currently, she is the Editor for the Marie Alexander Poetry Series and teaches periodically at a number of places, including the Sewanee School of Letters MFA Program, the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNCA, and the Hindman Settlement School. She lives with her wife, poet Jessica Jacobs, in Asheville, NC, where she volunteers at a four different animal sanctuaries. Currently, she’s at work on a bestiary of sorts about these animals, but it won’t consist of the kind of pastorals that always made her (and most of the working-class folks she knows) feel shut out of nature and the writing about it—these poems speak in a queer, Southern-trash-talking kind of way about nature beautiful, but damaged and dangerous. A clutch of these new poems recently won Rattle’s 2018 Chapbook Contest—To Those Who Were Our First Gods was published in 2018.

JESSICA JACOBS is the author of Pelvis with Distance, winner of the New Mexico Book Award in Poetry, an Over the Rainbow selection by the American Library Association, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary and Julie Suk Awards. Her chapbook In Whatever Light Left to Us was published by Sibling Rivalry Press and her second full-length collection Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going was published by Four Way Books in 2019. Jacobs holds an M.F.A. from Purdue University, where she served as the Editor-in-Chief of Sycamore Review, and a B.A. from Smith College. Her poetry, essays, and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Orion, New England Review, The Missouri Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Guernica. An avid long-distance runner, Jessica has worked as a rock climbing instructor, bartender, and professor, and is now the Associate Editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her wife, the poet Nickole Brown.

About the Series

ASHEVILLE POETRY SERIES is a happening for poets and poetry lovers commencing on the third Monday quarterly at seven o’clock in the evening at THE BLOCK off Biltmore in downtown Asheville. The event consists of a reading by the feature poet(s) followed by an open microphone, for which readers may sign up and recite one or two short pieces. During the open portion of the event, we encourage new voices and accomplished poets alike to share what they have been working on in a space where writers have the opportunity to try out new works in front of an audience on a regular basis. Please join us for consistent, fine poetry in a setting that is equally fine. Founded in 2012, Asheville Poetry Series is an independent reading series that continues to bring great poets from across the world to present their work in downtown Asheville.