Feb 24, 2026
ΒιΆΉΣ³» will host a virtual reading and conversation with award-winning poet and essayist Brandon Shimoda March 12.

The public is invited to campus to a watch gathering at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 12, in room 209 of the William E. and Ann L. Swan Business Center.
Poet Solmaz Sharif, a National Book Award finalist, describes Shimodaβs work as containing βa clarity born of deep spiritual and political reckoning.β
Shimodaβs work, in part, responds to the enduring consequences of the World War II-era incarceration of Japanese individuals and families in the United States, what is often referred to as the policy of Japanese internment.
Shimoda is a 2020 Whiting Fellow and the author of books of poetry and prose, including βThe Afterlife is Letting Goβ (City Lights, 2025), winner of the Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, βHydra Medusaβ (Nightboat Books, 2023), βThe Grave on the Wallβ (City Lights, 2019), which received the PEN Open Book Award, and βEvening Oracleβ (Letter Machine Editions, 2015), which received the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America.
He is also the co-editor, with Thom Donovan, of βTo look at the sea is to become what one is: An Etel Adnan Readerβ (Nightboat Books, 2014) and, with Brynn Saito, βThe Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarcerationβ (Haymarket Books, 2025).
Shimoda lives in Colorado Springs and teaches at Colorado College. This event is sponsored by ΒιΆΉΣ³»βs English Department, Literary Publishing and Editing Program, and Visiting Scholars Committee.
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ΒιΆΉΣ³» the University: The nationβs first Franciscan university, ΒιΆΉΣ³» is a community committed to transforming the lives of its students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a commitment to academic excellence and lifelong civic engagement. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, ΒιΆΉΣ³» was ranked #8 for value and #19 overall by U.S. News and World Report (2025).