Final Thursday Reading Series

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FINAL THURSDAY READING SERIES

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Hearst Center for the Arts
Cedar Falls, Iowa

Featured Reader:
Rauan Klassnik

SEE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS

Rauan Klassnik

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, and Rauan Klassnik takes the stage at 8:00. There will be a short question and answer period as time allows.

Rauan Klassnik was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, has lived in Dallas for most of his life, and now spends most of his time in Mexico. His work has appeared in many journals including The Mississippi Review, North American Review, Sleepingfish, No Tell Motel, MiPoesias, and Caesura. His first book, Holy Land, was released this year by Black Ocean. See below for a sample of Rauan's writing.

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.

Holy Land by Rauan Klassnik

excerpts from Holy Land
by Rauan Klassnik

Drifting in the pool with the light shimmering dark all around them these red pods look like spent shotgun shells. You leaned down and bit my chest and you told me I was filled with suffering: “I bow down to it and lick its feet,” you said. My God, it was all so simple: your mouth, my body——all the rivers turning grey.

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The day he was hanged my wife and I sat at a bar, bewildered by the speed and beauty of a sushi chef. Everything he does——each wrap, each cut——says we are immortal. Especially when he plants the mutilated head and torso of a lobster in a bowl of ice, its long feelers tasting the air, and in a small dish its flesh. My wife’s hand is hot. I can feel eternity tightening around us. I can feel the bones in it gleaming. In the doorway of his cell, he looked at the guards like they’d tell him he had a chance and we walked with him, to his death, singing.
(first appeared in Hunger Mountain)

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His voice is a tiny flash of light. A lighthouse pulsing. An orchid hanging. Waterfalls and almond trees. The sky’s pressed down: one eye blue, the other pink. He’s been dead for months. Hard black fetal skin. His voice dogshit white.
(first appeared in The Kennesaw Review )

The Fall 2008 Lineup
Final Thursday Reading Series

August 28: Fiction Writer Grant Tracey
September 25: Poet Rauan Klassnik
October 30: Memorist Amy Nolan
November 20: Poet Jonathan Stull

Read Work By Featured Readers

Chaveevah Banks Ferguson

Eula Biss

John Bresland

Scott Cawelti
Bill Chene

Rebecca Dunham
frje Echeverria