CHESTERTOWN, MD—The third and final evening of the 2015 Summer Poetry Salon series hosted by the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College will take place Tuesday, July 28, and will feature readings by poets Joelle Biele and Aaron Smith and music by violist and violinist Nevin Dawson. The event begins at 4:30 p.m. on the Lit House porch and is free and open to the public.

Joelle Biele is the author of Broom and White Summer and the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence. A recipient of awards from the Poetry Society of America and the Maryland State Arts Council, she has published essays and reviews in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Harvard Review, and Kenyon Review.  She has been a Fulbright professor in Germany and Poland and taught American literature and creative writing at Goucher College, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 

Aaron Smith is the author of the prize-winning collection Appetite, an NPR Best Book selection, and Blue on Blue Ground, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. His chapbooks are Men in Groups and What’s Required, which received the Frank O’Hara Award. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish, and The Best American Poetry 2013.  He serves as poetry editor for the literary journal Bloom and teaches creative writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Nevin Dawson (violin, viola, electric viola) studied viola at Penn State University while earning a degree in Forestry. He has played with many symphonies and chamber ensembles, including Pennsylvania Centre Orchestra, Canberra Symphony Orchestra, and the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra. He currently teaches violin, viola, and cello at Music Life in Chestertown and plays with Shore Strings, the Londontowne Symphony, The Pam Ortiz Band, Harp & Soul, and Ricky Walls and the North County Pickers. His music has been recorded for seven albums. A member of the Chester River Chorale, he also performs in the concert version of Red Devil Moon, a forthcoming musical by Robert Earl Price and Pam Ortiz. He currently lives in Chestertown with his wife and their three-legged Pomeranian and serves as Sustainable Agriculture Coordinator with University of Maryland Extension.

The Summer Poetry Salons are made possible with support from the Douglass Wallop Fund. For more information on this and other literary events, visit www.washcoll.edu/centers/lithouse/