Observable Readings: Mary Jo Bang & Mark Bibbins

The reading will be held in-person at High Low, and also streamed live to this event page and to Saint Louis Poetry Center’s Facebook page.

Observable Readings and COVID-19

The health, safety, and well-being of our audiences, visiting poets, SLPC staff & volunteers, and the St. Louis community is our top priority. Patrons attending Observable Readings in-person are required to provide upon entrance to High Low:

• A photo ID, AND;
• A vaccination card with name that indicates full vaccination, OR 
• A photo of a complete vaccination card with name, OR 
• A negative RT-PCR test taken within 72 hours of the event date, OR 
• A negative antigen test taken within 24 hours of the event date

Mary Jo Bang

Mary Jo Bang is the author of eight books of poems—including A Doll for Throwing, Louise in Love, The Last Two Seconds, and Elegy, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award—and a 2012 translation of Dante’s Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, and a 2021 translation of Purgatorio. She holds an MA degree in Sociology from Northwestern University, a BA in Photography from the former Polytechnic of Central London (now Westminster University), and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. She has received a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Berlin Prize Fellowship. She is a Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis where she teaches creative writing.

Mark Bibbins

Mark Bibbins is the author of four books of poems, most recently 13th Balloon (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), which received the Thom Gunn Award from the Publishing Triangle. His first collection, Sky Lounge (Graywolf Press, 2003), received a Lambda Literary Award. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, and The Best American Poetry series. Bibbins teaches in the graduate writing programs of The New School and Columbia University, and directs NYU’s Writers in Florence program.