Contact: Callie Simonton

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Writer, editor and educator Jessica Poli is joining Mississippi State’s English department for the next installment of its Price Caldwell Visiting Writer Series at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 25, in Mitchell Memorial Library’s John Grisham Room.

Open to the public, Poli will read from her new collection “Red Ocher,” for which she was named a finalist for the University of Arkansas Press 2023 Miller Williams Poetry Prize. A book signing and question-and-answer session will follow.  

“Jessica Poli is not only a wonderful poet and teacher, but also a kind-hearted person. I’m glad that the MSU community has the chance to hear about her amazing poems and her journey, which I find truly inspiring,” said Saddiq Dzukogi, an MSU assistant professor of English who is organizing Poli’s campus visit.

Poli’s previous work has appeared in journals such as Best New Poets, North American Review, Poet Lore and Salamander, among other publications. She has received an Academy of American Poets Wilbur Gaffney Poetry Prize and a University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vreeland Award for Poetry. In addition to being an award-winning poet, the Pennsylvania native is a current Ph.D. student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an associate editor for the Prairie Schooner literary magazine.

Poli’s work was published in the latest issue of MSU’s Jabberwock Review, a literary journal published semi-annually by MSU students and faculty.

For additional information about Poli’s campus visit and reading, contact Dzukogi at s.dzukogi@msstate.edu or Professor Becky Hagenston at bhagenston@english.msstate.edu.

For more details about MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences or Department of English, visit www.cas.msstate.edu or www.english.msstate.edu.

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