Third Thursday Poetry highlights an esteemed literary tradition: spoken word. The ongoing series—now entering its fourth year—provides the unique opportunity for museum guests to meet and mingle with visiting poets, enjoy divergent styles of writing, and participate in open mic readings.

Camille T. Dungy is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade, and the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys Into Race, Motherhood and History, which is a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. She has also edited anthologies including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry. Her poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, 100 Best African American Poems, and many other print and online venues. Her honors include an American Book Award, two Northern California Book Awards, a California Book Award silver medal, two NAACP Image Award nominations, and fellowships from the NEA in both prose and poetry. She is a professor at Colorado State University.

Third Thursday Poetry is funded in part by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Art.