WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Sunday, Oct. 6 at 4 pm, the Clark Art Institute hosts poets Iain Haley Pollock and Nathan McClain in the Manton Research Center auditorium for a free poetry reading.

 

Pollock reads poems from his most recent book, "Ghost, Like a Place," and from a forthcoming collection. McClain, whose poetry has been described as "no-nonsense, meat and potatoes, good gotdam poetry," also reads from his work. The two poets then discuss their stylistic differences and conceptual overlap when it comes to poetry, language, race, and W.E.B. Du Bois's concept of double consciousness. A Q&A and book signing follow the event.

 

Iain Haley Pollock is the author of three poetry collections, "Spit Back a Boy" (2011), "Ghost, Like a Place" (Alice James Books, 2018), and the forthcoming "All the Possible Bodies" (Alice James, September 2025). His poems have appeared in numerous other publications, ranging from American Poetry Review and The Kenyon Review to The New York Times Magazine and The Progressive. Pollock has received several honors for his work including the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Poetry, the Bim Ramke Prize for Poetry from Denver Quarterly, and a nomination for an NAACP Image Award. He directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville University in Purchase, New York.

 

Nathan McClain is the author of two collections of poetry, "Previously Owned" (Four Way Books, 2022), longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and Scale (Four Way Books, 2017). McClain is a recipient of fellowships from The Frost Place, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and Bread Loaf Writers' Conference; he is also a Cave Canem fellow. His poems and prose have appeared in The Hopkins Review, Plume Poetry 10, The Common, Guesthouse, and Poetry Northwest, among others. McClain received his MFA from Warren Wilson College. He now teaches at Hampshire College and serves as poetry editor of the Massachusetts Review.

 

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. A Q&A and book signing follow the event. Copies of recent books by Pollock and McClain will be available for purchase at the reading and in the Museum Store. This event is co-organized with the Du Bois Freedom Center, Great Barrington, Massachusetts.