Tickets for tonight's talk will be available at the Box Office table at the top of the stairs to the Benaroya Recital Hall at 6pm with cash, check, or charge. Tickets for all seating levels will be available.

 

Nikky Finney was born in South Carolina to activists and came of age during the civil rights and Black Arts movements. Finney has authored four books of poetry: Head Off & Split (2011), which was awarded the 2011 National Book Award for poetry; The World Is Round (2003); Rice (1995); and On Wings Made of Gauze (1985). A professor of English and creative writing at the University of Kentucky, Finney also authored a collection of short stories, Heartwood (1997), edited The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (2007), and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets. Of her most recent book, Nikki Giovanni wrote, "We all, especially now, need this book of poems; we all, especially now, need this poet."