B. H. Fairchild is the author of four books of poetry, including Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest, which won the National Book Critic's Circle Award, and The Art of the Lathe, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, the California Book Award, the PEN Center West Poetry Award and an award from the Texas Institute of Letters. A revised edition of an earlier book, Local Knowledge, has just been published by Norton.

Fairchild grew up in small towns in Texas, Oklahoma, and southwest Kansas. His poetry honors the landscape of the midwest and the skill of the craftsman, including his father, who operated a lathe in a machine shop when he was growing up. The recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller/Bellagio and NEA Fellowships, Fairchild has also received the Arthur Rense Poetry Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Aiken Taylor Award from Sewanee Review for the body of his work. He lives in Claremont, California and teaches at California State University at San Bernardino.

This event is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow the poetry reading.

This annual lecture is made possible by the S.A. Yoder family through endowment gifts honoring Yoder's more than 30 years of service to the college and life-long appreciation of literature.