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The Center for Literary Arts is pleased to present acclaimed author Kim Addonizio, in a reading from her new, poetry collection EXIT OPERA. This event takes place on Thursday, April 23, 2026, at Hammer Theatre at 6:30 PM.

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A Library Journal Best Poetry Book of 2024

A new volume by acclaimed poet Kim Addonizio, whose work is known for its streetwise, unflinching explorations of love, lust, and mortality.
 

Set in locations from dive bars to Montparnasse Cemetery, from an ancient Greek temple to a tourist shop in Assisi, Exit Opera explores the ever-vexing issues of time, mortality, love, and loss, and considers the roles of art and human connection. Whatever their nominal subject—jazz, zombies, Buddhism, Siberian tigers—these poems make for a compelling mix of humor and pain, difficulty and solace. In a nod to Keats, one of the many fellow travelers in these poems, Addonizio invites us to “[inscribe] a few verses on whatever water / you can find” and assures readers that they are not alone in navigating the challenges and changes of mortal life. As she writes in “My Opera”:

 

The staging is difficult. Exploding stars
are involved, high-redshift galaxies, interior chambers,
a little country blues, a little jazz guitar, a jam jar containing
a tiny ocean & a tinier rowboat rocking gently in the swells
that I am steering toward you in the dark.

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Kim Addonizio is the author of over a dozen books of prose and poetry. Her latest poetry collection is Exit Opera (W.W. Norton). Her memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life, was published by Penguin. She is the author of two instructional books on writing: The Poet's Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. Addonizio’s work has been translated into several languages and honored with fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and her collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her poems have been widely anthologized and published in many journals, including The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Poetry, The Nation, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Yale Review, and many others. She teaches and performs internationally and lives in Oakland CA, where she teaches Zoom poetry classes. Find her online at https://www.kimaddonizio.com .

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This event is made possible thanks to the support of the Lewandowski Family Foundation, and the College of Humanities and the Arts' Artist Excellence Programming Grant.