Tiana Clark, MFA, assistant professor in SIUE’s master’s of fine arts creative writing program.EDWARDSVILLE - Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Tiana Clark, MFA, assistant professor in the Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing program, will read from her new collection of poems, I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24 in SIUE’s Cougar Store.

Her book of poetry was awarded the prestigious Agnes Lynch Starett Prize for Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh Press. The collection includes approximately 40 poems that address themes of race and identity.

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“This will be my first public reading at SIUE!” Clark exclaimed. “I'm excited and eager to share my work with the incredible faculty and students, and surrounding community members.”

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“In this book, I delve into personal and public histories, explicating memories and muses around race, elegy, family and faith by making and breaking received forms as well as probing mythology, literary history, my own ancestry, and, yes, even Rihanna,” she added.

Clark was the 2017-18 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. She is the author of Equilibrium, selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. She is the winner of the 2017 Furious Flower’s Gwendolyn Brooks Centennial Poetry Prize, 2016 Academy of American Poets University Prize and 2015 Rattle Poetry Prize.

For more information or to order a copy of I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, visit Amazon.

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provides students with a high quality, affordable education that prepares them for successful careers and lives of purpose to shape a changing world. Built on the foundation of a broad-based liberal education, and enhanced by hands-on research and real-world experiences, the academic preparation SIUE students receive equips them to thrive in the global marketplace and make our communities better places to live. Situated on 2,660 acres of beautiful woodland atop the bluffs overlooking the natural beauty of the Mississippi River’s rich bottomland and only a short drive from downtown St. Louis, the SIUE campus is home to a diverse student body of more than 13,000.

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