Award-winning poet and essayist Jim McGarrah will present the keynote speech for USI’s 13th Annual Social Work Conference at 8 a.m. Wednesday in Carter Hall.

His talk, “Dead Reckoning: A Treaty of the Mind,” explores issues of post-combat readjustment and “particularly where we are failing in our ethical and moral responsibilities at an individual and a societal level both in the making of veterans and the treatment of veterans, and how we might improve.”

The speech will be followed by a roundtable discussion featuring McGarrah and local members of Veterans For Peace, from 10 a.m. to noon, on the history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other related issues.

Admission to the speech and the roundtable is free and open to the public.

Social workers who would like to attend the conference must register through the website at www.usi.edu/50967.aspx.