CFK Poetics to feature Blas Falconer on September 16

Award-winning author, editor, and teacher to present a live reading at free event on Key West Campus

KEY WEST, FL, September 2, 2026 — The College of the Florida Keys (CFK) invites the community to attend a CFK Poetics event on Wednesday, September 16 at 5:30 p.m. at the Tennessee Willliams Theatre on the Key West Campus. Blas Falconer, a poet, author, editor, and educator from San Diego, California, will present a live reading of his work and take questions from the audience. The event is free for all attendees.

Blas Falconer is the author of four poetry collections, including “Rara Avis” (Four Way Books, 2024), for which he received the 2025 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, and “Forgive the Body This Failure” (Four Way Books, 2018). He is also the coeditor of two anthologies: “The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity” (The University of Arizona Press, 2011), with Lorraine M. López, and “Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets” (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), with Beth Martinelli and Helena Mesa.

Falconer is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. He teaches in the MFA program at San Diego State University and is the editor-in-chief at Poetry International Online.

CFK Poetics is a series that aims to develop awareness of an immersion in the humanities landscape by connecting students and the community with poetry on the national level in a way that is immediate to their own experiences. Since 2019, visiting poets have come to Key West or appeared virtually to share their work and have conversations with the student body as well as the community at large. Formerly featured poets include Maria Zoccola, B.H. Fairchild, Chelsea Rathburn, Richard Blanco, and Ross Gay, Barbara Hamby, David Kirby, Adrian Matejka, Lauren K. Alleyne, and Kim Addonizio.

Additional information about CFK Poetics can be found on the College’s website at www.cfk.edu/poetics.