The Kansas City Public Library hosts poet Sean Hill for a reading from his first collection of poetry, Blood Ties & Brown Liquor on Sunday, November 16, at 1:30 p.m. at the Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St. The program is a part of the Park University Ethnic Voices Poetry Series.

From 2006-07, Hill was a Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. Currently, he is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Blood Ties & Brown Liquor was published in 2008 by the University of Georgia Press.

Originally from Milledgeville, Georgia, Hill received an MA in English from the University of Georgia and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, where he was awarded the 2003 James A. Michener Fellowship in poetry. He has also received grants and fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bush Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and the Jerome Foundation.

His poems have appeared in numerous periodicals, including Callaloo, Indiana Review, Lyric Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter, Gulf Coast, and Ploughshares, as well as in several anthologies.

Hill’s presentation is co-sponsored by Park University and the Missouri Arts Council.

Copies of Blood Ties & Brown Liquor will be available for sale, and the author will sign copies purchased at the event.