Tom Sleigh’s new collection – The King’s Touch (Graywolf, 2022) – references the once-held belief that the hands of a monarch could be imbued with the divine power to heal, and explores our desire for swift intervening cures against a backdrop of personal grief, ongoing war, international crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when “every room / is an emergency room,” these poems ask critical questions about justice, complicity, unfathomable loss, and how to contend with what is witnessed. Tom Sleigh is the author of eleven books of poetry, including Space Walk (2007), winner of the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Award. During the last decade, Sleigh has also worked as a journalist in Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Kenya, Iraq, and Libya. In 2018, he published a book of prose collecting his essays on refugees in the Middle East and Africa, The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing In An Age Of Refugees.

Good news! We are able to welcome fully vaccinated audience members to campus on Tuesday, February 15 to hear Tom Sleigh open up our Spring 2022 season. You must be able to present your vaccination card to attend. Doors will open at 6:30, and capacity will be limited to 185 guests. For those who would prefer to watch from home. we'll be livestreaming on Facebook and YouTube.