Esteemed poet, playwright, short story writer and translator Afaa Michael Weaver will be at Carthage on Thursday, March 24, to read from his work. The reading will be held at 4 p.m. in the A.W. Clausen Center for World Business, Room 107.

Born in 1951 in Baltimore, Md., Afaa Michael Weaver graduated from his public high school as a National Merit finalist at age 16. He spent two years at the University of Maryland before leaving college to work in a factory alongside his father and uncles. He remained a factory worker for 15 years, during which time he wrote and published poetry, short fiction and freelance journalism; and started 7th Son Press and the literary journal Blind Alleys.

His first book of poetry, Water Song, was published in 1985. That same year, he left factory life to finish his education. He attended Brown University's graduate writing program on a full university fellowship. Concurrently he completed his B.A. in literature in English at Excelsior College.

His published collections include The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005; Multitudes; Sandy Point; and The Ten Lights of God. His full-length play Rosa was produced in 1993 at Venture Theater in Philadelphia. His short fiction appears in Gloria Naylor's Children of the Night and in Maria Gillan's Identity Lessons. He has been a Pew Fellow in poetry and is currently the Alumnae Professor of English and director of the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Center at Simmons College in Boston, Mass. He is also chairman of the Simmons International Chinese Poetry Conference.

Henry Louis Gates has described him as one of the most significant poets writing today: "With its blend of Chinese spiritualism and American groundedness, his poetry presents the reader (and the listener, for his body of work is meant to be read aloud) with challenging questions about identity, about how physicality and spirit act together or counteract each other to shape who we are in the world," Gates stated. "His attention to the way language works is rare, and the effects of that attention on his poetry are distinctive and expansive."