Please join us Monday Oct. 22 at 7:30 pm as we host readings by two Spartanburg poets, each of whom begins his first book tour here at The Showroom at Hub-Bub. Philip Belcher, a winner in the South Carolina Poetry Initiative's annual chapbook contest, will read from that chapbook, The Flies and Their Lovely Names. Alex Richardson will read from his new book, Porch Night on Walnut Street, published by Plainview Press of Austin, TX. Their books will be for sale at the event.

Philip Belcher (pictured) has published poems in a variety of poetry journals, including Plainsong, Thorny Locust, and Mobius. In 2005, he won the Porter Fleming Writing Competition Prize in Poetry. He was also selected as the 2006 South Carolina Poetry Fellow Alternate by the South Carolina Arts Commission. Since March 2000, Philip has served as President of the Mary Black Foundation, a private foundation serving Spartanburg County, South Carolina. 

Richardson has published approximately 50 poems individually. His works are currently featured in Red Hawk Review, Birmingham Poetry Review and Broken Bridge Review. More poems will be published this summer in two different anthologies, Kakalak 2007 and The Southern Poetry Anthology. In his new book, Richardson's poems hover between domesticity and wildness, duty and whimsy, contentment and longing, documentation and invention. They will provide experienced readers with highly nuanced pleasures, and they will impress newcomers to contemporary poetry with their initial delights.