Matthea Harvey

Poet Matthea Harvey will read from her work for Washington University’s Writing Program Fall Reading Series at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4.

The talk — sponsored by The Writing Program and Department of English, both in Arts & Sciences — is free and open to the public and takes place in Hurst Lounge, Room 201, Duncker Hall, on the university’s Hilltop Campus. A book-signing and reception will follow and copies of Harvey’s works will be available for purchase. Duncker Hall is located at the northwest corner of Brookings Quadrangle, near the intersection of Brookings and Hoyt drives. For more information, call (314) 935-7130.

Harvey’s first book, Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form (2000) won Alice James Books’ New York/New England prize, and her second volume, Sad Little Breathing Machine (2004) was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets. Her poems have appeared in such magazines as Denver Quarterly, DoubleTake, Fence, Grand Street, The Paris Review and The New Republic, among others.

Publisher’s Weekly described Sad Little Breathing Machine as “Taut and up-to-the-minute in its intellectual and its formal concerns.” adding that Harvey’s new work “seems sure to consolidate her status as a young poet to watch… Though many younger poets share her interests, few match her verbal assurance…”

Harvey earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and her bachelor’s from Harvard College. She is currently poetry editor of American Letters & Commentary and also on staff with Bomb Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn.