Monday, March 12, 2012

News from Paul Fisher (05)



Paul Fisher (05) reads with fellow Geospatial poets on March 25, 4:00 pm, at the 2012 Cascadia Poetry Festival. His poem, “North of the Crater,” set at post-eruption Mount St. Helens, has been selected for inclusion in A Sense of Place: the Washington State Anthology of Geospatial Poetry, which can be read from space, figuratively speaking, by all who have Google Earth installed on their computers. Simply click the cyber pushpins to read the poems and to view photos of their locations. Details can be found in the links below.

 

Friday, February 17, 2012

Kathleen Fagley (05), M. Ayodele Heath (07), Erika Lutzner ('10) and Marilyn McCabe (10) New Publications


Order Otherness by M. Ayodele Heath (07)  from  Brick Road Poetry Press





Erika Lutzner's ('10) book, Invisible Girls is now available from Dancing Girl Press








This flyer is to announce to friends and acquaintances that Katheen Fagley's (05) poetry collection from Finishing Line Press, How You Came to Me, is coming out June 1, 2012.
To pre-order visit www.finishinglinepress.com and click on forthcoming titles
How You Came to Me, the title of Kathleen Fagley's new volume, aptly conveys the multi-layered theme of these splendid poems. Through them we experience all the complex emotions of bearing a child whose birth brings in a “Wedge of specialists/with shiny stethoscopes”. The language of diagnosis floats in the mother’s mind as a linguistic puzzle, and though used to describe Evan, is somehow disconnected from him.  Evan’s birth is one way he came to his mother, and it is rendered in spare, precise, and evocative images:  the onset of labor; the cut of the caesarean delivery.  Then the poems observe, probe, question, and explore poignant moments, moments either painful or transcendent or both.  All are rendered with an exquisite attention to nuances of time, place, other people, and the world.  Reading these poems, I found my breath slow and deepen. Margaret Rozga, author of Two Hundred Nights and One Day and Though I Haven’t Been to Baghdad

Fox tracks in snow, preserved peaches like “squishy vulvae pressed against glass--”, baby bats killed by fondue forks, and a child no more defined by his damaged chromosome than by his name “Evan—-Welsh for John,/Hebrew for ‘God is good’”: By living fully within one life’s palpable complex of grief and beauty, Kathleen Fagley's  poems take us straight into a timeless and universal predicament: the costs and joys of living in that gray area in which we find our humanity.  The unassuming strength of character apparent in these powerful poems is a reminder of the vigilance and, yes, continuous courage required to live and love honestly in this world of wonder and tragedy.   --Jane Mead
In spare, crafted, muscular language and stunning metaphors, Kathleen Fagley relates the anguish of having a child, a boy, Evan, born with the fragile x that leaves him severely developmentally disabled. As she struggles to come to terms with the child's effect on herself and her family and with their decision to place him, it's as if she, her marriage, the whole family is torn apart and put together again.  These are important poems, shattering but life-affirming, full of insight, compassion and emotional power.  --Patricia Fargnoli 



It’s in print! Marilyn McCabe's ('10) new book, Perpetual Motion, has hit the bookshelves, at least cyber-ly. You can order it at:
WORDWORKS BOOKS
And available from
Small Press Distribution Books











Monday, February 06, 2012

AWP CONFERENCE

Photo Credit: Jacqueline Gens of Jim Harms and Ilya Kaminsky 2010 Conference

VISIT THE NEW ENGLAND COLLEGE MFA PROGRAM BOOTH AT THE CHICAGO AWP  CONFERENCE

BOOTH A18

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Best American Poetry Blog Interviews Chard deNIord on "Sad Friends, Drowned poets, and Stapled Songs".



Best American Poetry Blog interviewed Chard deNiord on his new book of interviews, "Sad Friends,  Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs" (Marick Press, 2011)

Chard deNiord is the former program director and co-founder of the MFA program at New England College. The book is published by Marick Press.

This book of interviews with seven senior American poets-Jack Gilbert, Donald Hall, Galway Kinnell, Maxine Kumin, Lucille Clifton, Ruth Stone, and Robert Bly- and essays on Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell’s correspondence, specifically her delicate outrage over his use of his wife’s and daughter’s letters in his 1974 book, The Dolphin, James Wright’s poem To the Muse, and Philip Levine’s poems The Simple Truth and Call it Music, presents a broad view of the bold and original epoch in contemporary American poetry following World War II. In their wise and always engaging responses and commentaries, deNiord's subjects reflect candidly on their careers and the unprecedented big tent of American poetry today.

Friday, December 09, 2011

Datum Earth Reading

 
 
 
 
 
POETRY BY 
VERMONT POET LAUREATE SYDNEY LEA
& BECKY D. SAKELLARIOU

SATURDAY NIGHT
DECEMBER 10, 8PM
@THE STARVING ARTIST, KEENE, NH
 
http://datumearth.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Winter 2012 Afternoon Electives




The following six hour electives will be available during the Winter 2012 MFA Residency. These electives allow students to concentrate on areas of interest which result in work they can continue working on into their mentor semester or deliver during the residency.  To review the different concentrations available, visit our pages on the right margin. The following workshops are currently offered for the 2012 winter residency:

RETURN GUEST FACULTY/WORKSHOP in


The Poem-in-Performance: 

Working with our melopoeia, -- the innate music of our writing -- we will let our poetry guide us into various performance strategies and modes of composition. We will be working with our voice, our timing, possible instrumentation, collaboration and the like. We will consider methods of sprechstimme (speak-singing), monologue, vocal duets, curses, spels, lullabies, blues, poem-as-libretto, and also consider how to shape the work on the page with its orality in mind. We will begin with some “experiments of attention” and work toward individual pieces we will then record on a CD. Participants may also bring a piece of their choice to class to work on, as well as instruments they can play. Musicianship is welcome! Discussion will include some performance theory.  Last winter this same workshop generated at least two individual performance pieces per student in addition to a group ensemble piece recorded professionally. Anne is phenomenal; Ambrose a musical genius when working with poets!  --Anne Waldman & Ambrose Bye



One Foot in the Fire: the History and Practice of Prose Poetry

In this class we’ll discuss prose poetry from Baudelaire to Ben Marcus, look at some of the ‘forms’and conventions of the prose poem, and work on writing our own. Much of the focus here will be on the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of prose vs. lineated verse. Hybridity will be encouraged, so even students with a strong preference for the line could consider coming, just to shake things up a bit. This will be primarily a generative workshop, though if you have prose poems or poems you think might work better as prose poems, feel free to bring in 20 copies on the first day of class
-- Katie Farris

New Media Poetics: Time: Motion and Typography Using Flash

In this workshop we will investigate the concept of time and typography in poetics (both on and off the page) and explore the possibilities of Flash animation software in the creation of new media poetry. Students will be guided in the process of translating/animating one of their own poems, using formal and conceptual elements and conventions common to both poetry and Flash animation, with particular emphasis on typography, elements of design, time concepts, and the relationship between form and content. Students will be given a foundation-level introduction to the Adobe Flash Professional software, which they will use in the production of an original, Flash (animated) poem. Please note, however, that this is not a software training class; rather, it is intended to introduce the fundamentals of new media poetry and its production to expand students’ understanding and appreciation of poetries both on and off the page, give students a hands-on experience in the creation of an original new media poem, and serve as a foundation for further exploration and learning.
*No prior experience with time-based media/software is necessary, but students should be comfortable with general computer use. Students who have questions or concerns about the workshop or its technical/skill requirements may contact Tara Rebele by email (tara@tararebele.com) or see her in person at the residency.--Tara Rebele


Poet As Translator                                                                      

Octavio Paz said: “Translation is an art of analogy, the art of finding correspondences. An art of shadows and echoes…” Charles Baudelaire said that poetry is essentially analogy. The idea of universal correspondence comes from the idea that language is a micro cosmos, a double of the universe. Between the language of the universe and the universe of language, there is a bridge, a link: poetry. The poet, says Baudelaire, is the translator.”

In this workshop we will read and compare multiple translations of  single poems and examine the choices and strategies of translation. In addition, each student will also provide contributions of his or her own translation of given poems. These translations will serve as focal points for the larger subject of translation, that of the poet as translator. Knowledge of a second language is welcome but not necessary.
--Malena Morling

2012 Winter MFA Open House


WINTER MFA OPEN HOUSE

Friday, JANUARY 6, 2012

SIMON CENTER at New England College | 98 Bridge Street | Henniker, NH

For individuals interested in finding out more about New England College’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing: Poetry program, please join us for a day of events at our MFA Winter Residency. Come and meet faculty and students to explore and see what a perfect fit our program is for your journey.
Spend the day on-campus attending a writing workshop and a choice of electives in New Media or Prose culminating in an evening filled with student readings. Co-directors Jim Harms and Jacqueline Gens will also be on hand to discuss the admissions process and financial aid options.
Friday, Jan. 6, 2012 Open House for prospective MFA Students, Teachers and Poets
9:15 AM Continental Breakfast and registration
9:30-10:00 AM       
Welcome and Program Overview with 
Co-Directors, James Harms and Jacqueline Gens

10:00 AM-Noon                        
Choice of  New Writing Workshop with Carol Frost, Brian Henry, 
Ilya Kaminsky or James Harms in the Center for Educational Innovation (CEI Building)

Noon-1:00 PM                  
Lunch in Gilmore Dining Hall

1:15 PM   
Question and Answer Session

* Optional-- Participants who are interested may join one of the afternoon electives in either New Media or Prose


Please R.S.V.P. with Cristy McGuinness, Graduate Admission Counselor at:
 cmcguinness@nec.edu or 603.428.2906. We look forward to seeing you.

For further information about New England College’s MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry program and faculty bios visit: www.nec.edu/sgps/mfa-in-poetry/ 

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

News from Barbara Benoit ('09)



Pudding House is publishing Barbara Benoit's ('09)  chapbook Waiting for the Thoroughness of Winter, and her poem "And If Not Good" is forthcoming in 5 AM.

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Jenn Monroe (08) in the NH Manchester Examiner



Jenn Monroe's (08) forthcoming book, Something More Like Love, will be released in early December by Finishing Line Press. An article about New Hampshire poet, Jenn Monroe and professor of creative writing at Chester College was featured in the NH Manchester Examiner.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Two Alumni at the Bowery Poetry Club





Roy Nathanson ('08)
Saturday, October 29, 2011
at the Bowery Poetry Club

Roy Nathanson's Sotto voce with amazing poets - Kumanyakaa, Stern, Friedman, Holman, Ashby, MacarieThe Sotto voce band is Napoleon Maddox, Curtis Fowlkes, Tim Kiah, Jess Mills and Roy Nathanson, dancing notes, sounds and voices around these poets wine inspired musings plus Roy and Bob Holman will perform the beginning of their insane concoction "The sax lesson"

Irina Mashenski ('08) The first Compass Translation Award ceremony at the Bowery Poetry Club.
October 30, 2011
2:00 PM

In Memory of Oleg Woolf
Irina Mashinski In memory of Oleg Woolf (1954-2011)
An hour and a half of poetry, songs, and translation
Part I. Irina Mashinski, poetry; Oleg Woolf, songs.
Part II. The results of the First Translation Competition held under the auspices of the Cardinal Points Literary Journal. In English

The Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
(Between Houston and Bleecker)
F train to 2nd Ave, 6 to Bleecker
mail@bowerypoetry.com
212-614-0505







Sunday, October 23, 2011

Tomas Transtromer Wins 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature




Check out Malena Morling's translation of a poem by newly appointed Nobel Prize winner in Literature Tomas Transtromer in the LA Times book review.  Malena along with other core faculty, Brian Henry and Ilya Kaminsky, are leading translators of international poetry. During each residency, one of them conducts a three day workshop in translation for MFA students in the program.

PHOTO CREDIT: Louis Siegal

Saturday, October 01, 2011

Chard deNiord on Poetry Foundation Best Seller List

Chard deNiord's book, The Double Truth (University of Pittsburgh Press) is on the Poetry Foundation's "Best Sellers" list.  Chard is the co-founder and former co-director of the MFA program at New England College.

Chard deNiord is the author of four books of poetry, The Double Truth(forthcoming in January, 2011 from the University of Pittsburgh Press),Night Mowing (The University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), Sharp Golden Thorn (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003), and Asleep in the Fire (University of Alabama Press, 1990). His book of interviews with senior American poets,Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs, is scheduled to appear in the Fall of 2011 from Marick Press. His poems, interviews and essays have appeared recently in Best of The Pushcart Prize, New England Review, Best American Poetry, Hudson Review, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review and Salmagundi. He is the co-founder of the New England College MFA Program in Poetry and an associate professor of English at Providence College. He lives in Putney, Vermont with his wife Liz, and their dog, Soze.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Datum Earth

Friday, September 23, 2011

Irina Mashinski ('08) at Hampshire College

IRINA MASHINSKI ('08) AN EVENING OF POETRY AND TRANSLATION

Poetry Reading and the Compass Translation Award: presentation and discussion. In English



WHEN: September 29, Thursday, 8 pm

WHERE: KIVA room (Main Library, 3d Floor)

Hampshire College, MA

map: http://www.hampshire.edu/vtour/

Irina Mashinski is a bilingual poet and translator. She has authored seven books of poetry in Russian, and her most recent collections are Volk [Wolf] (Moscow: NLO, 2009) and Raznochinets pervyi sneg i drugie stikhotvoreniia [Raznochinets First Snow and Other Poems] (New York: Stosvet Press, 2009). Her work has appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, including Poetry International, Fulcrum, Zeek, The London Magazine, and An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2005). She is the co-editor (with Robert Chandler) of the forthcoming Anthology of Russian Poetry from Pushkin to Brodsky (Penguin, 2014), as well as co-founder (with Oleg Woolf) and co-editor (with Robert Chandler and Oleg Woolf) of the Cardinal Points literary journal, published in the U.S. in English and Russian. Irina Mashinski is the winner of several literary awards, including the Russian America (2001) and Maximilian Voloshin (2003) Awards. Her poetry has been translated into English, French, Italian,Spanish, and Serbian.

Irina Mashinski holds a Ph.D. in Physical Geography and Paleoclimatology from Lomonosov Moscow State University and an M.F.A. in Poetry and Poetics from New England College. In the US, she has taught Mathematics, Science, Meteorology, Russian History, and The History of European Culture in high schools and universities.

Web-sites:

Ms.Mashinski:

http://www.stosvet.net/union/Mash/ - poetry

http://www.stosvet.net/union/mashinski/ - essays

Compass Translation Award:

http://www.stosvet.net/compass/index.html

Cardinal Points Literary Journal:

www.stosvet.net