Todd Davis, professor of English and environmental studies, will read from his new book of poetry at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26, in the Titelman Study of the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts at Penn State Altoona.

Davis’s reading will kick off the fall Hard Freight Café, an open mic event presented by the campus student literary magazine.

Davis is the author of six full-length collections of poetry, most recently "Native Species" (2019) and "Winterkill" (2016), both published by Michigan State University Press. He’s the winner of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, the Chautauqua Editors Prize, and the ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year silver and bronze awards.

In "Native Species," Davis urges readers to consider the natural world and our place in it. Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil says that the poems in the collection “serve as a much-needed guidepost and catalyst for wanting to create even more songs of this complicated earth.”

For more information on "Native Species," visit the MSU Press site.

The reading and open mic are sponsored by the English program and the Division of Arts and Humanities. Both events are free and open to the public.