Join us for an outdoor "pop-up" poetry reading with Writer-in-Residence at the Hemingway House, Ibe Liebenberg, who will share and discuss poems from his newly published collection, Birds at Night (Texas Tech University Press, 2025).

We'll gather in the Cimino Plaza, just outside the Children's Library near the corner of 4th and Walnut. In-person only. In case of inclement weather, this reading will be help in the Treehouse.

Liebenberg’s first book-length collection of poetry, Birds at Night, explores themes of loss, trauma, PTSD, indigeneity, and familial relationships. These brief, intense poems amplify the sensations and silences of interior moments of crisis and catharsis. A haunting meditation on what keeps us up at night, Liebenberg invites the reader to contend with their own responses to exigent circumstances.

Drawing on the resiliency of the natural world in the face of changing climate, birds, wolves, and fire populate the stanzas. Migration and adaptation are the poetic subjects, but they are also the embodied language of each taut line. “In whatever tongue they sing,” Birds at Night captures the need for empathy and understanding for the natural world.

Ibe Liebenberg is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. He lives in Chico, California, and works as a firefighter for the state and lecturer at Chico State University. He has an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in poetry and fiction. He has been published in Poetry magazine, The Threepenny Review, and many other venues.

The following night, Ibe is leading a writing workshop: "The Art of Withholding." Learn more or register here.