Put some poetry in your bank

April is National Poetry Month, but no need to go searching high and low for a way to get involved. Miami is home to one of the nation's most respected poetesses, FIU creative writing professor Denise Duhamel, who will read tonight from her new collection, Ka-Ching!

But if you're expecting a reprise of your high school English class -- flowers, thee, thou, etc. -- you've come to the wrong place. Duhamel specializes in flipping traditional forms on their head in a thoroughly contemporary diction. For instance, her new book features a crown of sonnets about eBay that puts the "shake" back in the form that made Shakespeare famous.

Author of five previous collections and a past winner of the Crab Orchard Poetry Prize, Duhamel is a dynamic reader with a flair for the comedic.
Sat., April 11, 7 p.m., 2009