THE SEASONS BEAR US

Until Everything is Continuous Again

2012-01-08T21:01:00.000-06:00

WordFarm Press (Seattle) announces a major anthology, featuring essays, interviews, and exchanges on W. S. Merwin's poetry from the publication of The Rain in the Trees in 1988 through his recent Pulitzer Prize-winning collection The Shadow of Sirius.

Join us at the 2012 AWP Conference on Saturday evening, March 3 at 7 p.m. in Private Dining Room 3 at the Chicago Hilton. Meet the publishers, editors Kevin Prufer and Jonathan Weinert, and contributors David Caplan, Steven Cramer, Debra Kang Dean, Forrest Gander, Mark Halliday, Jerry Harp, H.L. Hix, Mark Irwin, Sarah Kennedy,Eric Pankey, Lisa Russ Spaar, Michael Thomas, Jeanie Thompson, and Matthew Zapruder.

The Value of the Printed Word

2011-09-18T10:36:00.016-05:00

I was a child editor. Or that’s how I’d like to think of it. Almost 22, I entered the MFA program at The University of Alabama in January 1974, and ended up as editor-in-chief of a magazine in the making: The Black Warrior Review. (Years later, another set of editors would drop that The.) My team of rag-tag creative writing peers and I managed to launch a magazine that led off with poems by Norman Dubie, and included work by Rodney Jones and Gary Soto. We published two short stories, one from the prize-winning Alabama fiction writer H.E. Francis. We learned on the job how to be editors, to work with printers, and to market our product. There were no courses in this and we probably wouldn’t have taken one if there had been ...(click the headline above to continue reading)

"New Moon Dawn," a video by Savannah Sipple

2010-08-15T23:32:00.001-05:00

On the Road Again this Spring for Poetry

2010-02-21T13:51:00.001-06:00

This spring I'm on the road again for some readings and poetry workshops, and invite you to check out the dates in the appearances section at the left.

In Alabama, I’m honored to be a part of the Red Mountain Reading Series at Jeff State Community College, the Birmingham Museum of Art’s educational programs, including ArtBreak, and the innovative Slash Pine Press Poetry Festival

In April, I will also travel over to Columbus, MS to participate in the Southern Literary Festival , which encouraged me as a young poet some thirty years in the undergraduate poetry competition.

We turbo-charge our literary season in-state with the Alabama Book Festival

in Montgomery April 17, where the Alabama Writers' Forum sponsors the Poetry Tent and the Teacher Workshops (on Friday the 16^th), and finally, it’s all capped when we converge in Monroeville for the Alabama Writers’ Symposium and award Carolyn Haines the 13^th Harper Lee Award.

This is not an exhaustive list of Alabama literary events, just the ones I will have a small part in, so please go to www.writersforum.org to see the best literary calendar available on the Web. Hope I see you somewhere on the poetry trail this spring!

Reading at InKY January 8 in Louisville: Poetry for the New Year

2009-12-29T13:17:00.000-06:00

What fun to begin 2010 with a reading from The Seasons Bear Us and my first visit to Louisville's excellent InKY Reading Series hosted by The Rudyard Kipling. Thanks to Erin Keane, who manages the series, and Lynnell Edwards, President of the InKY Board. I'm honored to read with poet Cecilia Woloch and invite you to check out her latest work from BOA Editions, Carpathia. For complete information about the evening's lineup of poetry, music, and other fare: http://www.inkyreadingseries.com/. We get rolling at 7 p.m. so if you are in town that evening, please drop by! Books are provided by Louisville's oldest independent bookshop, Carmichael's. Many thanks.

Turn around and it's late fall

2009-11-09T11:10:00.000-06:00

Turn around and it's late fall. I'm looking forward to coming to Louisville to be with my Spalding family for the residency.

On Sunday, Nov. 15 I have the great honor of reading with two fine fiction writer colleagues: Mary Yukari Waters (The Favorites) and Silas House (Eli the Good). I always enjoy the distinctively-flavored stories and prose of these writers. If you are in the Louisville area, I hope you'll join us at 5 p.m. on the 16th Floor of the Brown Hotel for Spalding's "Celebration of Recently Published Books." Thanks for Carmichaels' for providing books.

The first Friday in December I'm traveling with my good friend and fine poet Nana Lampton to Frankfurt for an evening of reading and fellowship at Poor Richard's Books. Thanks, Richard Taylor! And finally, in January, I finally make my INKY debut at Rudyard Kiplings on W. Oak Street in Louisville. I'm looking forward to all of these opporutnities.Details in the "appearances" here.

I wanted to share the pumpkin carved to decorate the Sequoyah School reception table when we launched Keep It Real, edited by Priscilla Hancock Cooper, an anthology of poetry and fiction by young women enrolled in the Writing Our Stories program at the Alabama Department of Youth Services. This year the Alabama Writers' Forum published our 31st, 32nd and 33rd anthologies. A true treat for me.

The Poet Loves the Library Tour heads to North Alabama

2009-09-28T22:21:00.000-05:00

Kathleen Driskell (SEED ACROSS SNOW) and I are hitting North Alabama with "The Poet Loves the Library Tour" Tuesday, Sept. 29, with stops at Athens State University, Huntsville Madison County Public Library and on to Florence on Sept. 30 for a reading at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library and the next day with students on the University of North Alabama Campus. For details, see Appearances column at left.

A recap will be coming soon on Orlando -- the land of Dr. Seuss fur trees and other amazing sights.

On to Orlando!

2009-09-17T09:52:00.000-05:00

I'm heading to Orlando today and look forward to meeting the literary community there, spending time with Spalding colleagues and students, and meeting new friends. If you're in the area, check out Urban Think!'s reading series tomorrow night-- kudos to Susan Lilley and Phil Deaver who help keep poetry on the radar screen for all!

On the Road, continued, but first -- thank-you notes.

2009-09-13T10:12:00.000-05:00

Like a good Southern girl I am in major guilt about overdue thank you notes...so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has hosted me for some amazing events to promote the little poetry book. And I also want to let you writers out there know of some vibrant locations for promoting contemporary Alabama writing.

In Tuscaloosa, Hank Lazer and the entire Creative Campus Initiative team of staff and students were amazing hosts. After spending an evening and day with them, renewing old friendships and making new ones, I am so optimistic about the future of arts, culture and leadership in Alabama. I want to be a Creative Campus intern when I grow up (never had that when I was at UA). It was a privilege to be part of the Poetry and Community Panel that afternoon in the synergistic Gorgas Library (site of my undergraduate and graduate days prowling the stacks, pre-internet). And to see so many old friends, students, and others pack the Bama Theater lobby for the poetry reading that night, site of my parents' first date many moons ago (they walked from Campus down to the Bama), and to know that while Poet Laureate Sue Walker and I were reading, my soul mate friend Wayne Sides was debuting his 30 year retrospective upstairs...well, it was moving and so important to me. Thanks to everyone who helped and for all the great coverage, too. This is just the beginning of our association between the Alabama Writers' Forum and the CCI. More to come!

Then on to the South Alabama leg of the September tour, where I have to give a bouquet of thanks to Emily Bell and the rest of the staff at Page and Palette in Fairhope for a fun and encouraging ArtWalk event. The most astounding thing: two people came in and said they were buying the book based on reading John Sledge's review in the Press-Register the previous Sunday. Newspaper publishers take note: the book review page drove traffic to the store and therefore had economic impact. Readers spend money. Let's make sure the editor of the P-R knows this, too...

In the Mobile leg of the trip, I had the privilege of being hosted by Sue and Ron Walker in their home for my first ever "house concert" and let me say there is nothing like reading to a packed living room with a beautiful chocolate lab gazing at me while I read. Bring dogs -- they love poetry. This sort of effort to love and nurture poetry is worth emulating in communities all around our state.

After a day of meeting USA students, talking with them in Sue, Carolyn Haines and Deborah Ferguson's classes, I wasn't sure what to expect at the Santori Sound Coffee House for the USA Poetry Theater, but when we pulled up in the parking lot at 5:45 and had to park at the back, I started to get that prickle of excitement that attends a crowd. NEVER have I had to move the microphone so that the people surrounding me 360 could all see and hear. Someone said the headcount was 85 but don't tell the Fire Marshall. I was completely overwhelmed by that turnout and rode the crest as best I could. Thank you to all who made this possible. Again, it's not about me or any individual poet, but about a community that supports and believes in the written -- and spoken -- word.

And last but not least to Eleanor Inge Baker and Steve Baker, thank you for your lovely home, the coolest breeze I've ever felt in Mobile, and a chance to meet more new friends with you.

ONWARD: To Orlando and Urban Think! Sept 18, and then Selma Sept. 24, SIBA Sept. 25-27 and North Alabama Tour with Kathleen Driskell Sept. 30-Oct.1.

Hitting the road soon in Alabama and Florida

2009-08-17T11:29:00.000-05:00

I'm looking forward to heading to Tuscaloosa, Fairhope, Mobile, Orlando, Selma, Florence, Athens and Huntsville soon! Please look in the APPEARANCES column for specifics. Please check back here for more on these events, and some new work, too, in the next few days.

New Moon Dawn, a video by Savannah Sipple

2009-06-03T22:45:00.000-05:00

Savannah Sipple (Spalding, '08) has created a video of "New Moon, Dawn" from The Seasons Bear Us.

New York, NY in June

2009-06-03T22:24:00.000-05:00

I'm headed to New York NY on June 9 for two events to promote the book-- June 10th with the Southern Writers Reading Series at the Happy Ending Lounge and June 13th at KGB Bar. Thanks to those who have kindly helped bring some southern poetry to the Big Apple. For more information, see links in APPEARANCES.

I want to take this opportunity to thank friends who have welcomed me to the Decatur Public Library, the Alabama Booksmith in Homewood, Capitol Book and News in Montgomery, and the Gnu's Room in Auburn. Also, I want to thank the Spalding University faculty, students, and alums who cheered and supported me during the recent brief residency in Louisville. As I look forward to visits ahead, I carry with me the love and warmth I've felt among friends in the past few weeks. Through you, the work gains meaning.

A poem for spring rain

2009-03-15T10:50:00.000-06:00

With the Night

Rain has washed the pollen all day – it coats everything and in the arc light on the deck it glows lime green as kelp. I’m liking my boots in the puddles at night when everything is opalescent and moist, the edges fuzzy, my ass sexy in these too-tight jeans but no one sees under my rain slicker. When I reach the magnolia towering in the neighbor’s front yard I stop, listening for the raindrops firing down. I barely get wet standing here so I drop my hood back and look up, up into the mandala of branches forking and reforking against the night sky. In one-point concentration I let her take me in – the vaginal pop and pop of the raindrops down through her leaves bigger than my hands. I’m alive in this spring night, with all my joints loosening, dazed, remembering happiness. Let the rain streak these glasses, I love this night, love my body catching up and what pulls me forward, says watch your step, woman, spring wants you, wants you, wants you.

For spring

2009-03-11T20:51:00.000-06:00

Consider Touch it, thought the black unformed, though thought is a crude approximation of how it moved. Long to … love it, the formless- formed murmured. Shape into light was an urge loosening from somewhere, shape into night and day oozed next, and next, and next. Then birdsong coalesced and eyelash turned worlds to storm, and golden, and heights, flight. At the wedding feast, your first thought filled the water jugs with good wine, even as you knew nail, the stone’s cool shelter, and later, their staggering joy. Alone among men, you knew how the unformed furled itself toward us. Red stain upon red stain, the magnetic pull, the restoration.

2009-03-01T10:04:00.000-06:00

First Snow Nothing different, nothing rare just this falling everywhere like a shattered, silver crown falling softly, quickly down on the branches of the tree that arched above us. You were holding me again, life returned that fire within, I held my breath, I let it out. Nothing touched us in that room, but later in the open, falling midnight air, the snow seemed perfect, adamant, and fair – I raised the window to stretch my arms toward snow now dusting the stalwart tree grounded there –

and later in the morning light

I'd watch you walk

below me, pacing off your property, caressed by lightest, silver snow, yours, soon melting, soon to go. So what would bind us? Not mere weather -- perhaps the knowledge that once together the thirst we felt could be not quenched by snow, or time, that resolute distance.

2009-02-05T00:34:00.000-06:00

Cornbread

No one here but you and me and perfect cornbread, steaming in its iron skillet. On the stove beside it, turnip greens bubble, essential to such union. No other human, just dog and woman on Sunday night, alone. I’ve proven the theorem again, equation of salt, baking soda, and powder into one cup of meal, one egg, and the buttermilk I sniff, still okay five days past, it’s tangier, just right. Here’s the tricky part: heat shortening in the skillet as the oven temperature rises. Be patient – work slowly – and when the grease is hot, it will bind the mixture, make the crisp coat firm. Sixteen minutes and it’s turned out like a dancer on the green ceramic plate. You get the first bite. I kneel and pull apart the thin wedge I’ve cut for you. Just a dog. Eye to eye, remember when someone told the puppies to hush? Did you catch a steaming ball of corn dough in your dream? Lick my fingers – it’s that good. When he returns – his hand, too.

2008-12-31T14:03:00.001-06:00

Leaving the Farm at Daybreak

The dogs trailing down the lane, I entered mist drifting above hay fields, burning toward a winter blue sky shredded with clouds. In the hills’ rolling breastworks, the well-tended cattle, embedded like stones, watched my progress. At the gate, I stepped from the car, rested my hand on the frigid gate to lift the latch. Once through, my fingers ached on the wheel with the shock of cold. I looked again at the perfect oil of a landscape -- the open folds of the pastures on either side seemed to promise comfort. Did the light merely reflect the coming day? . I entered the main road, and drove away.