On Thursday, February 16th, Dustin Pearson will read his poetry as part of the 2023 Prout Chapel Reading Series, hosted by Bowling Green State University. The reading will take place at 7:30 at Prout Chapel at BGSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pearson is the author of A Season in Hell with Rimbaud, Millennial Roost, and A Family Is a House. Dustin also has work which appears in The Nation, The Boiler, Blackbird, Bennington Review, Poetry Daily, The Literary Review, The Cortland Review, among other publications. Dustin is an Assistant Professor teaching creative writing at the University of Toledo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pearson\u2019s work explores themes of love, loss, abuse, trauma, and hope. His work is both raw and honest, and while woeful at times, still carries grace and hope in its folds. Pearson views his writing as a way to artfully call on his lived experiences and observations, zooming in on them in the process. In an interview with Florida State University\u2019s English Department<\/a>, Pearson iterates, \u201cI like to think of the writing as holding a magnifying glass to different aspects of that experience. The aesthetic presentation of the resulting writing is determined by how much I prioritize my internalized perception of what I\u2019ve experienced or a more assimilated or recognizable one, which I think people most often call reality.\u201d Indeed, there is a malleability to truth, experience, and the expression of them; in his poem \u201cSouls Side by Side\u201d Pearson writes to that end:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe creeps<\/p>\n\n\n\n around us<\/p>\n\n\n\n pining<\/p>\n\n\n\n like he hadn\u2019t died<\/p>\n\n\n\n when he first left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Father, why<\/p>\n\n\n\n are you dying?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We killed you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You should be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n (from theboilerjournal dot com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n