Can't Miss It: Monday

BOOKS: Depending on how much you think you can take so early in the week, we have two suggestions for you. Seattle journalist Silja J.A. Talvi talks about her book, Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System at the Capitol Hill branch of the public library, from 6-8 p.m. But on the lighter side, at Elliott Bay there's Nathaniel Rich, author of The Mayor's Tongue. Rich is editor of the Paris Review, and this is his first novel, which makes it surprising that it's so readable, you know, for a neo-mythic, bildungsroman fantasia.

FILM: Tonight is the three-year anniversary of Kung Fu Grindhouse at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard. On the triple-bill are Heroes of the East (6 p.m.), Shrunken Heads (7:30 p.m.), and The Crippled Masters (9 p.m.). These are all unfairly overlooked masterpieces, we're sure. But if you must have a preview, try out this clip on the merits of drunken boxing.

6 p.m. // Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Avenue Northwest // FREE (21+)

POETRY: Seattle Arts and Lectures welcomes the poet Edward Hirsch to the Intiman. Hirsch is "perhaps best known for the runaway bestseller, How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry," which unfortunately required you to be interested in a book about poetry before you could be sold on poetry, and so went unread by the larger population. Here is a sampling of How to Read a Poem. Here he's really upset about Paul Celan. Completely understandably.

7:30 p.m. // Intiman Theatre, 201 Mercer Street // Tickets: $20 general, $10 students/under-25

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Seattlest and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla.