Bob Stewart, the director of the Midwest Poets Series for 35 years, will return to Rockhurst University following his retirement last April — this time, however, as the first guest of the series’ 36^th season, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 25, in Arrupe Hall Auditorium.

Poet Christopher Buckley said that Stewart’s poems “begin with concrete, then lead us upward” — they look at the things that others miss and then say why those things matter.

Stewart’s latest book, Working Class, published in 2018 by Stephen F. Austin, draws its title more from the poem’s  thematic concerns than their philosophical approach.

“I do believe that sometimes you have to ‘get up in the morning and go.’ And, it’s sometimes hard. And sometimes you put in a day’s work. And coming from a blue-collar working class background, it’s putting in a day’s work that has always meant something to me,” Stewart said.

Stewart’s previous books include The Narrow Gate: [Essays] Writing, Art and Values; Outside Language: Essays, a finalist in the PEN Center USA Literary Awards and winner of the 2004 Thorpe Menn Award; On Swerving: The Way of William Stafford; and Plumbers. Stewart teaches in the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing and media arts at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he also edits New Letters.

A book signing and reception will follow the 7 p.m. reading. The Midwest Poets Series is sponsored by Rockhurst University’s Center for Arts and Letters and the College of Arts and Sciences with support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. Admission is free. For information about the series or other University cultural events, contact the Center for Arts and Letters at 816-501-4607 or visit rockhurst.edu/artsandletters.