Jesse Graves Reading (Recorded Live, April 13, 2026)

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Jesse Graves joined us at Lawson McGhee Library for a reading of his work. Jesse Graves is the author of five poetry collections, including Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine, Basin Ghosts, Specter Mountain, Merciful Days, the forthcoming A Little Light in the Grave, and a book of prose, Said-Songs: Essays on Poetry and Place. His work received the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South from the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the Philip H. Freund Prize for Creative Writing from Cornell University, as well as two Weatherford Awards in Poetry from Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association. Graves has served as co-editor for several collections of poetry and scholarship, including four volumes of The Southern Poetry Anthology and The Complete Poetry of James Agee. He teaches at East Tennessee State University, where he is Poet-in-Residence and Professor of English.

Links:

Jesse Grave's website

"Jesse Graves and the Cosmic Appalachian Boogie," in Salvation South

Six Poems by Jesse Graves in Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature

"Two Stones" in New Verse Review

"Above Johnson City" in As the Crow Flies

Three poems in Cutleaf