Third Thursday Poetry highlights an esteemed literary tradition: spoken word. The ongoing series—now entering its fourth year—provides the unique opportunity for museum guests to meet and mingle with visiting poets, enjoy divergent styles of writing, and participate in open mic readings.

Third Thursday Poetry is funded in part by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Melissa Range is the author of Scriptorium, a winner of the 2015 National Poetry Series (Beacon Press, 2016), and Horse and Rider (Texas Tech University Press, 2010). Recent poems have been published in 32 Poems, Blackbird, Image, and Poetry. Range is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the American Antiquarian Society, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Originally from East Tennessee, she teaches creative writing and American literature at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.