Final Thursday Reading Series

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FINAL THURSDAY READING SERIES

Thursday, January 29, 2009
Hearst Center for the Arts
Cedar Falls, Iowa

Book Release Reading By
Paul Hedeen

SEE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS

Paul Hedeen

The Hearst Center is located at 304 W. Seerley Blvd. in Cedar Falls. Enjoy the art on your way back to the reading. Open mic signup begins at 7:00 p.m. Bring your best five minutes of poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction. Singer-songwriters are also welcome, and now we have access to the Hearst's grand piano. The open mic begins at 7:15. Paul Hedeen takes the stage at 8:00. There will be a short question and answer period as time allows.

Paul Hedeen’s reading will feature selections from his new poetry collection, When I Think About Rain (Final Thursday Press). He is also the author of the novel, The Knowledge Tree (Sanbun Publishers), and the co-editor of Unrelenting Readers: the New Poet-critics (Story Line Press). Hedeen is an award-winning professor and writer who teaches literature, film, and writing at Wartburg College. A sample of his poetry can be found below.

Hearst Center for the Arts

The James & Meryl Hearst Center for the Arts is located at 304 West Seerley Blvd. in Cedar Falls. Stop by early to check out the current exhibitions.

This Room, This Life
This Room, This Life
by Paul Hedeen

Beyond the glass
is the rain’s
close slickness.
In shuttered gray
this day is already
an old earth-worn,
careworn,
ponderous basket, made
to carry no summer’s tale.
Nodding in wind
the sunflowers’
frowsy heads
sway seeds
spilling out and out—
O, can you see them?
Can you see the sky
is black
with its full
measure of clouds,
yet light is clutched in
an urgency
of blossoms,
holding their haughty chins,
these blossoms. . . .
And in longing embrace,
as laughter shivers
on silence,
we forget
we are closed
in this sudden room,
this life.