The poems in Richard Lehnert’s new book, “The Only Empty Place,” are meticulously crafted and edited, with a hard-won lyricism as heartstrong as it is leached of sweetness, and powerful undertows of deep feeling. These poems are the distillation of a long and closely examined life. The writing is honest and self-searching, with dry, dark humor. “The Only Empty Place” can serve as a handbook for those who delight in rigorous poetic craft when used to conduct deep moral inquiry, as well as for those who want to read examples of how the disciplined use of plain, direct speech can produce poems that hurt to read even as they heal. As Lehnert himself says, “These poems are the best of me.”

Richard Lehnert’s first book, “A Short History of the Usual,” was published in 2003. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Barrow Street, The Southern Review, The Sun, Prairie Schooner, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Rattle, Spillway, Mid-American Review, Chautauqua, The Laurel Review, Commonweal, and many other journals. He has lived in Ashland since 2011.

The reading will take place at Bloomsbury Books, 290 E. Main St., Ashland.