Flyleaf Second Sunday Poetry Series: Richard Chess and Melissa Crowe

About this event

Join us for our Monthly Poetry series, an afternoon of poetic readings. Featured poets will each read for 20 minutes, followed by a short break to sign books, then an open mic. Please sign up by 2:30 pm, and limit your reading to one poem, one page. Hope to see you there!

Richard Chess is the author of five books of poetry, including his most recent collection, The Loneliest Monk (Orison Books 2026). His work has been included in Best American Spiritual Writing 2005 and The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary American Jewish Poetry. He is a regular contributor to “Close Reading,” the blog hosted by SLANT Books. His essays have appeared in Image as well as in Far From the Centers of Ambition, Stars Shall Bend Their Voices: Poets’ Favorite Hymns & Spiritual Songs, The Carolina Table, and 27 Views of Asheville. He was a founding member of the board of "Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry", from which he recently stepped down after five years of service. In recent years, he also served on the board of Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center. He is professor emeritus from the UNC Asheville, where, for 30 years, he directed UNC Asheville’s Center for Jewish Studies. You can find out more about him at his website: www.richardchess.com

Melissa Crowe is the author of Dear Terror, Dear Splendor (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), Lo (University of Iowa Press, 2023), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, and Abider (University of Pittsburg Press, 2026). Her work has appeared in 32 Poems, New England Review, Poetry, and the Rumpus, and she was the 2021 recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s Robert H. Winner Memorial Award. She chairs the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she teaches poetry and publishing.