Noted Birmingham poet Robert Collins will sign and discuss his latest book, NAMING THE DEAD.

In Naming the Dead, Robert Collins takes the reader into "the blind world here below," a world inhabited by sinners, saints, and strangers, who often are one and the same. From childhood playgrounds through the suffering of adulthood, the heart of the collection is made of eight elegies literally naming the dead and paying homage to some who have served as mentors and companions on the journey. We learn, then, that the only way to return home is to keep moving forward. Thus, the poet offers hope, however tentative, that those who enter the abyss might like Dante "ascend into the shining world again.

Born in New Jersey, Robert Collins was educated in Ohio, where he received his A.B. from Xavier University and M.A. and Ph.D. from Ohio State University. While at OSU he received two Academy of American Poets prizes. He has published poems in a variety of 1iterary magazines, including Ascent, Charlotte Poetry Review, Chattahoochee Review, Cimarron Review, Connecticut Review, College English, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Hiram Poetry Review, Louisville Review, Manhattan Review, Poems & Plays, Prairie Schooner, South Coast Poetry Journal, Southern Humanities Review, Shenandoah, Southern Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry. He has received two Individual Artists Fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize several times, and received the Ascent Award for Poetry, selected by Brendan Galvin. He taught American literature and creative writing at the University of Alabama in Birmingham where he founded and edited Birmingham Poetry Review and directed the creative writing program.