Aldon Nielsen & Crystal Boson

Aldon Nielsen & Crystal Boson 
5pm Sunday July 17th

photo credit: Howard Rambsy

Aldon Lynn Nielsen is a poet and critic, and will be reading from his new chapbook Mantic Semantic (Hanks Orginal Loose Gravel Press, 2011). He has published five collections of poetry, most recently Mixage (Zasterle Press, 2006), and five volumes of critical work. He was the first winner of the Larry Neal Award for poetry and has received two Gertrude Stein Awards for innovative poetry. Nielsen is the George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature in the Pennsylvania State University 's Department of English. He divides his time between Pennsylvania and California.

Crystal Boson is fascinated by Hoodoo, Black Sci-fi, roller derby, food mills, and bacon. She has been previously published in Callaloo, Pank, Chroma, The Black Bottom and has a chapbook, The Icarus Series, with Seven Kitchens Press. When not writing poetry about Texas, bar fights, or existential love, she is a Ph.D. student in American Studies at the University of Kansas. Crystal holds both a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature, from the University of Missouri and Texas A&M University respectively. She currently resides in Lawrence, KS with her macbook, a basil plant named Lazarus and her Decemberists cds.

Additionally, the reading will include an open mic portion, which would be a great opportunity for any poets to share their work or generally "out-speak".