Poet Genoways reads tonight

Poet Ted Genoways evokes the stark loneliness and hard-scrabble survival of life in early twentieth-century Klondike in “Anna, washing,” the latest release from the Parallel Press.

In this 16-piece collection, Genoways imagines the life of two Finnish immigrants to the Klondike in 1897. Genoways will read from “Anna, washing” and from his previous collection, “Bullroarer: A Sequence,” at 7 p.m. today, Dec. 4, at Canterbury Booksellers, 315 W. Gorham St.

A chapbook is a small-format literary work, usually of poetry or essays. The chapbooks are published by the Parallel Press, an imprint of the UW–Madison libraries. This chapbook marks the 16th release for the press.

“Anna, washing” was inspired by Genoways’s travels to Alaska in 1996, where he visited the village Eagle, along the Yukon River. There he learned of the story of Anna Malm, an immigrant woman credited with opening Alaska’s first laundry. This collection captures moments in the lives of Anna and her husband, Abe.

Genoways received a bachelor’s degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University, a master’s from Texas Tech University, and a master’s of Fine Arts from the University of Virginia. He has written previous chapbooks, “The Dead Have a Way of Returning” and “The Cow Caught in the Ice.” Genoways, who lives in Minneapolis, is a two-time winner of the Guy Owen Poetry Prize from Southern Poetry Review.

Each Parallel Press chapbook is $10; annual subscriptions for six are $50. Titles may be ordered by writing: The Parallel Press 372 Memorial Library 728 State St. Madison, WI 53706. For more information: (608) 262-2600, kfrazier@library.wisc.edu.