Ed Madden will read from his new book of poetry, “Ark,” on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Literary Bookpost.

“Ark” is about a son’s return home, a father’s death from cancer, and the gifts of healing found in the care of the dying.

Madden is a professor of English and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina. He is the author of four books of poetry, “Signals” (2008), which won the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize; “Prodigal: Variations” (2011); “Nest” (2014); and most recently, “Ark’ (2016).

His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse, Poetry Ireland Review, as well as in Best New Poets 2007, The Book of Irish American Poetry, and Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry, and online at the Good Men Project. He is recipient of the inaugural Carrie McCray Nickens Fellowship from the South Carolina Academy of Authors. In 2015 he was named the poet laureate for the City of Columbia, South Carolina.

Free and open to the public.