The College of the Florida Keys (CFK) invites the community to attend a CFK Poetics event on Wednesday, September 24 at 5:30 p.m. at the Tennessee Willliams Theatre on the Key West Campus. Maria Zoccola, a poet and educator from Memphis, Tennessee, will present a live reading of her work and take questions from the audience. The event is free for all attendees.

Maria Zoccola’s fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications such as The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Sewanee Review, and ZYZZYVA, and have received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Her debut collection Helen of Troy, 1993 (Scribner, 2025) was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Pick upon its release in early 2025 and earned a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly. She has spent many years leading creative writing workshops for middle and high school youth and has writing degrees from Emory University and Falmouth University.

CFK Poetics is a series that aims to develop awareness of an immersion in the humanities landscape by connecting students and the community with poetry on the national level in a way that is immediate to their own experiences. Since 2019, visiting poets have come to Key West or appeared virtually to share their work and have conversations with the student body as well as the community at large. Formerly featured poets include B.H. Fairchild, Chelsea Rathburn, Richard Blanco, and Ross Gay, Barbara Hamby, David Kirby, Adrian Matejka, Lauren K. Alleyne, and Kim Addonizio. Additional information about CFK Poetics can be found on the College’s website at cfk.edu/poetics.