Michael Chitwood reads from his collection of poetry Poor-Mouth Jubilee

Wed 10/27  7pm-8pm

Michael Chitwood’s seventh collection of poems is tremendously varied in shape and pace, from terse, reflexive aphorisms to rangy narratives.  

Chitwood says of his new book, “During life struggles, well-meaning people often say ‘I’m praying for you,’ or they offer a secular equivalent. The poems in Poor-Mouth Jubilee explore that sentiment and the ways we use language to understand the myriad forms that intercession might take when asking the big spiritual and emotional questions. The poems in Poor-Mouth Jubilee are ghost stories, both holy and profane, and the ghosts have their motorcycles, their shotguns, and their public address systems.”

Michael Chitwood was born in the foothills of the Virginia Blue Ridge in a small town named Rocky Mount. He grew up there, attending the county’s only high school. He attended Emory and Henry College for his undergraduate degree, earning a BA in English in 1980. He worked as a science writer for a number of years at the University of Virginia Medical Center, eventually becoming assistant editor of the magazine Helix.  While there, he also became a full-time student in the MFA program, receiving his degree in 1986. He moved to North Carolina that year and worked as a science and medical writer at Duke University Medical Center and then at Research Triangle Institute where he edited the magazine Hypotenuse.

Previous books include the poetry collections Salt Works and Whet (Ohio Review Books 1992 and 1995), The Weave Room (Chicago, 1998), and Spill (Tupelo, 2008). Chitwood has also published two prose books, Hitting Below the Bible Belt: Baptist Voodoo, Blood Kin, Grandma’s Teeth and Other Stories from the South (Down Home, 1998) and Finishing Touches (Tryon, 2006). After the birth of his son, he became a free-lance writer and full-time Dad. And he became a commentator for North Carolina’s WUNC affiliate of National Public Radio. He also began teaching at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is now a full-time visiting lecturer at UNC and lives with his wife and two children in Chapel Hill.