Presented by COPPER CANYON PRESS. A special evening this should be, marking the return of esteemed, award-winning poet and translator W.S. Merwin—his first Seattle appearance since receiving the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for his most recent collection, The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon Press). To highlight and accentuate the occasion, and to give some idea of the degree of W.S. Merwin's influence and importance to the current literary landscape, four younger poets published by Copper Canyon will also read work, and speak to that influence. These include Erin Belieu (most recently author of Black Box), Ben Lerner (Angle of Yaw), Valzhyna Mort (Factory of Tears), and Matthew Zapruder (The Pajamaist). Following their portion of the evening, W.S. Merwin, now author of over twenty-five collections of poetry and as many books of prose and translation, will read from new and recent work. Copper Canyon's publication of his work include the poetry collections Present Company, the National Book Award-winning Migration, New & Selected Poems, The First Four Books of Poems, The Second Four Books of Poems, The Book of Fables; and translations: East Window: The Asian Translations, Transparence of the World (Jean Follain), Voices (Antonio Porchia), and Spanish Ballads. "A collection of luminous, often tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory." – Pulitzer Prize committee on The Shadow of Sirius. Tickets ($15/$10 students are available through www.brownpapertickets.com (or 1-800-838-3006). For more information, please see Copper Canyon Press at www.coppercanyonpress.org or call (360) 385-4925.

The end of Bay Area writer Maria Finn's marriage was also the starting point of new adventures in the world of Argentinean tango, a story told in her autobiographical book, Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home (Algonquin). After making friends at New York City tango milongas, or social dances, she studied the history and culture of tango, visiting Buenos Aires, and finding ... new love. "A lively debut memoir, brimming with tango history and lore." – Booklist. Tonight's program includes a tango demonstration by instructors from the Century Ballroom (soon to be our next-door neighbors on Capitol Hill). The Century Ballroom hosts a monthly Milonga—held this month on February 12—and an ongoing series of tango classes. For more information about both, please see www.centuryballroom.com. Maria Finn is also the author of the newly arriving A Little Piece of Earth: How to Grow Your Own Food in Small Spaces (Rizzoli).

He is a publisher—his own independent press, Future Tense Books. He is a bookseller—Small Press Champion (yes) at Powell's in Portland. And he is a fiction writer (Beautiful Blemish and Creamy Bullets). Kennewick native son Kevin Sampsell is now author of a rollicking, coming-of-age memoir, A Common Pornography. "Memory and truth are jagged things, and Kevin Sampsell's memoir-in-vignettes expresses this forcefully. With grit and candor, he marches us through the heartbreak, horniness, and confusion of a west coast boy becoming a man." – Robin Romm. "Embarrassing and honest, heartbreaking and hilarious, A Common Pornography is a great memoir from one of the Northwest's best writers." – Willy Valutin.

Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum makes this welcome Elliott Bay return visit this evening. Once a working newspaper journalist, now teaching science journalism at the University of Wisconsin, she is here with The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Penguin Press). The intrigue hinted at in the title is borne out in this fascinating work of historic sleuthing. "Blum makes chemistry come alive in her enthralling account of two forensic pioneers in early 20th-century New York. Blum follows the often unglamorous but monumentally important careers of Dr. Charles Norris, Manhattan's first trained chief medical examiner, and Alexander Gettler, its first toxicologist ... Blum cleverly divides her narrative by poison, providing not only a puzzling case for each noxious substance but the ingenious methods devised by the medical examiner's office to detect them ... With the pacing and rich characterization of a first-rate suspense novelist, Blum makes science accessible and fascinating." – Publishers Weekly.

Each month, the Elliott Bay Book Club reads and discusses the best in contemporary fiction with the occasional classic thrown in for good measure. Our March selection is The Journey of Little Gandhi by Elias Khoury. A many-layered story of Little Gandhi, or Abd al-Karim, a shoe shine in a city fractured by war. Shot down in the street, Gandhi's story is recounted by an aging and garrulous prostitute named Alice. Ingeniously embedding stories within stories, Little Gandhi becomes the story of a city, Beirut, in the grip of civil war. Laila Lalami in the Los Angeles Times says, "Los Angeles has Joan Didion and Raymond Chandler, and Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk. The beautiful resilient city of Beirut belongs to Khoury."