This series is presented with support from the UA Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry and the Africana Studies Department.

This spring, the UA Poetry Center features Terrance Hayes, Kimiko Hahn, Khadijah Queen, and Adrian Matejka in a series called “Spectacular Poetics, or the Poetry of Spectacle.” Each of these four world-class poets will address overlaps, contradictions, and confluences between poetry & spectacle. These presentations, part reading and part craft talk, will take place at the Poetry Center on four Thursdays in February.

Adrian Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany and grew up in California and Indiana. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His first collection of poems, The Devil’s Garden, won the 2002 New York / New England Award from Alice James Books. His second collection, Mixology, was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series and was published by Penguin Books in 2009. Mixology was a finalist for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature – Poetry. His most recent book, The Big Smoke, was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. The Big Smoke was also a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award, the 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. He is a winner of the Julia Peterkin Award, the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, two grants from the Illinois Arts Council, and fellowships from Cave Canem, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry 2010, Gulf Coast, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner among other journals and anthologies. He is the Lilly Professor / Poet-in-Residence at Indiana University in Bloomington and is currently working on a new collection of poems and a graphic novel.