MFA Reading Series: Rob Schlegel and Endi Hartigan

The MFA Reading Series presents Rob Schlegel and Endi Hartigan, two highly acclaimed and award-winning poets. “Rob Schlegel does nothing short of renewing the power of American English to tell truths worth telling,” wrote Katie Peterson. “He asks questions worth asking; he pushes the power of the language just a little bit further than we ever thought it would go, reminding us not just who we are but who we might become.” Poet Cole Swensen wrote of Endi Hartigan’s work: “Phrase after phrase jumps out, clear, yet also surprising. Hartigan’s linguistic play is almost vertiginous, constantly on the brink of overbalancing—but she never does, instead landing electrifyingly spot-on every time, creating a gymnastics of the page that is simply exhilarating.”

Rob Schlegel and Endi Hartigan will give a reading on Friday, April 5 at 7:30 PM in The Hemingway Center, followed by a book signing. Free and open to the public, the MFA Reading Series brings renowned writers to the Boise State campus each year.

A Portland-based poet, Endi Bogue Hartigan’s third full-length poetry book “oh orchid o’clock”–-released in spring 2023 from Omnidawn Publishing– explores histories of clock measure, temporal presence in today’s realities, and the impacts of our obsessions with time and instrumentation. In 2021, Oxeye Press published her series “the seaweed sd treble clef,” a handmade chapbook of poems and photographs. Cole Swensen selected her poetry book “Pool [5 choruses]” for the 2014 Omnidawn Open Poetry Book Prize and was a finalist for the 2015 Oregon Book Award for poetry. Martha Ronk selected Hartigan’s first book, “One Sun Storm” (Center for Literary Publishing, 2008), for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. In 2012 she co-published the chapbook “out of the flowering ribs” in collaboration with visual artist Linda Hutchins. Her work appears in numerous journals─including VOLT, New American Writing, Denver Quarterly, Interim, Chicago Review, and others─ as well as in collaborative projects with artists and writers. More on her work can be found at endiboguehartigan.com.

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Recipient of a 2023 James Merrill House Fellowship, Rob Schlegel authored “The Lesser Fields” (Center for Literary Publishing 2009), selected by James Longenbach for the Colorado Prize for Poetry, and “January Machine“ (Four Way Books 2014), selected by Stephanie Burt for the Grub Street National Book Prize. Brenda Shaughnessy selected his third collection, “In the Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps” (University of Iowa Press 2019) for the Iowa Poetry Prize. Four Way Books published his fourth collection, “Childcare,” in 2023. With the poets Daniel Poppick and Rawaan Alkhatib, he co-edits The Catenary Press. He teaches at Whitman College, and in the MFA Program at Portland State University. You can read more about his work here.

You can view all upcoming Creative Writing MFA readings on the events page here.