Poets Karl Gartung and Chuck Stebelton of Milwaukee's renowned Woodland Pattern Book Center, will read from their works at 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 8, in the Niemann Media Theatre, as part of Carthage's Spring Reading Series.

Karl Gartung is the author of Now That Memory Has Become So Important (2008, MWPH, Fairwater, Wis.). He has also collaborated with Elizabeth Robinson on a privately printed chapbook, Speak (2009, Boulder). He was born in Liberal, Kan., in 1947. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Hastings College in Nebraska in 1969. In 1976 he was hired to run Boox Inc., a small press bookstore in Milwaukee, which he says was the beginning of his serious apprenticeship to contemporary literature.

Mr. Gartung co-founded the Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, where he has been involved in the planning and presentation of hundreds of poetry readings, music performances, and art and book exhibits. He works as a truck driver at UPS Cartage Services. In 1993, after several layoffs, he helped organize his workplace into the Teamsters and still serves as a union steward.

Chuck Stebelton is the author of Circulation Flowers (Tougher Disguises, 2005). Recent print objects and chapbooks include 'Tis (John Riepenhoff Experience, 2009); A Maximal Object (Mitzvah Chaps, 2008); Flags and Banners (Bronze Skull Press, 2007); and Precious (Answer Tag Home Press, 2005). His newer writing appears in The Cultural Society, Lungfull!, and Kadar Koli. His collaborative work includes Fuel for Constant Light with Cindy Loehr, and more recently a series of Writing Machine poems with Cynthia Gray.

Mr. Stebelton works as literary program director at Woodland Pattern Book Center.

This is the third of four readings in the Spring Reading Series. Refreshments will be served following the readings. There will be time to talk with the writers. See the schedule.