Observable
Saint Louis Poetry Center’s Observable series celebrates its 22nd season!
The Observable series features local and national poets sharing recently published and new work. Originally started in 2003 by poet Aaron Belz, Observable is a key part of the St. Louis poetry landscape, presenting the liveliness and diversity of contemporary poetry.
Series Curators: Lizzy Petersen & Bailey Schaumburg
PHOTO CREDIT: Marcus Jackson (Coleman)
Observable Readings – Winter 2026
Keetje Kuipers & Aaron Coleman
Monday, February 16
7:00 p.m. (CT) – In-person at High Low
$5 | suggested donation
ABOUT THE POETS
KEETJE KUIPERS is the author of four books of poetry from BOA Editions, and the Editor-in-Chief of Poetry Northwest. Her collection Lonely Women Make Good Lovers is the winner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and was called “elegant, earthy, [and] pertinent,” by Marilyn Hacker. Her first book, Beautiful in the Mouth, won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Her subsequent books, The Keys to the Jail and All Its Charms, include poems honored with publication in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. Keetje’s poetry and prose have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, POETRY, American Poetry Review, and over a hundred other publications. She was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a Bread Loaf Fellow, the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident, a former board member and Vice President of the National Book Critics Circle, and is the recipient of a 2025 NEA fellowship. She lives in Montana with her wife and children.
AARON COLEMAN is a poet, translator, educator, and scholar of the African Diaspora. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, Cave Canem, the Fulbright Program, and the American Literary Translators Association. His debut poetry collection, Threat Come Close, was the winner of the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and his chapbook, St. Trigger, won the Button Poetry Prize. He is also the translator of Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén’s 1967 collection, The Great Zoo, selected for the Phoenix Poet Series by University of Chicago Press. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Boston Review, Callaloo, and Poetry Magazine. From Metro-Detroit, Coleman has lived and worked with youth in locations including Spain, South Africa, Chicago, St. Louis, and Kalamazoo. He is an assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan.
The Observable Readings series is supported in part by:
