The Community and World Literary series started on Feb.21 with readings from Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning — two published authors on a tour through the states.

Owen is an American Book Award winning poet who found the literary magazine Telephone in 1969. She read many poems from her book Erosion’s Pull (2006). Her pleasure, she told the listeners at the reading, was to “tell the truth about living.”

Her poetry was honest and thought provoking. Often times, she moved with the beat of her words, punctuating phrases like “I fell in love, something I shouldn’t have done alone” and “The earth appears so far away yet we are on it.”

Henning is the author of seven poetry books and four novels. She was the editor of the poetry and art journal Long News: In the Short Century from 1990 to 1995. The novel she read from, Just Like That, is a series of vignettes about “life evolving.”

Her readings gave insight into the human condition with phrases like, “His absence creates a cavity and I curl up inside it,” and “To repent too much is to harm oneself.”

Owen and Henning are on a two and a half month road trip that began in the Bronx on Jan. 11. Their tour will end March 19 in Denver, CO. They are blogging about their journey called “Owen and Henning: Poets on the Road” at www.barbarahenning/category/maureenowen/

The Community and World Literary Series offers students a chance to hear contemporary writers read their works and an opportunity to interact with the authors.

Some of the writers are based in Southern California, while others come from all over the country and the world. The next scheduled author will be Theodore Van Alst on March 21 at 7 p.m. in Markstein 125.