Come close out the 2023 season of What The Universe Is with two of America’s finest poets:

Adrian Matejka was born in Germany as part of a military family. He grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and is a graduate of Indiana University Bloomington and the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is the author of The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003) which won the New York / New England Award and Mixology (Penguin, 2009), a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series. His third collection, The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. The Big Smoke was also a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His next collection, Map to the Stars, was published by Penguin in 2017. 

Kevin Prufer’s (Poetry, MFA Writing Faculty) newest poetry collection, The Fears, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2023. His new novel, Sleepaway, will appear in 2024 from Acre Books. He is also the author of several other books of poetry, including The Art of Fiction (2021), How He Loved Them (2018), Churches (2014), In a Beautiful Country (2011), and National Anthem (2008), all from Four Way Books. Prufer is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and the low-residency MFA at Lesley University.