'06 alum Lawrence Benson's Miras Press debut poetry collection reading May 18th

Miras Press, the brainchild of MFA '06 Alum Lawrence Benson, is presenting a publication reading of its debut poetry collection, Rainsongs: Poems of a Woman's Life by Meta Commerse.  Lawence Benson will also read selected poems. More information available at http://www.miraspress.com/ and Facebook/MirasPress.

Friday, May 18, 2012

7PM

Phillips Community Center, Multipurpose room

2323 11th Ave S; Minneapolis, MN

Interview with Ann Iversion on her new book (reading at Hamline 15 October)

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It's a busy month and a busy week for alumni!  Here's another reading and an interview with the reader! 

GLS alum Ann Iverson will be reading from her new poetry collection, Art Lessons, at Hamline on Oct. 15, 7:00pm, in Giddens Learning Center. Ann and I finished up our MFA programs about the same time and have been in a writer's group together for about the past 10 years. Her art and poetry has been such an inspiration to me that I wanted to talk with her a little more about this new book and share it with the readers of this blog. If you haven't had a chance to read Ann's work, you now have three great books to add to your reading list.  --Teresa Boyer
 

Teresa: What inspired this third collection of poetry?

Ann: This book comes from a personal need to burn the torch for art and poetry, which often gets overlooked in a world saturated with technologies and gloomy forecasts. During the war of which my stepson served three tours of duty (the subject of my second book, Definite Space) I needed to find what God meant and how making art and poetry helped me to define what it means to exist. I am here and I am alive. Making art and poetry help me to exist in such a confusing world. 

Teresa: It seems like such a short time since your last collection was published and I know you are creating art and working full-time, too. How do you manage to fuel and sustain such a rich body of work?

Ann: I have no idea! I have a motto: One by one I get things done, but ten by ten, I’m lost again. But really, the thought of getting messy with paints and putting on the last glazing effect keeps me energized and makes me whole. It’s a slow process, actually, depending on the situations that life offers us. I consider Van Gogh who painted over 900 masterpieces in a decade span and then consider what I’ve done in a certain way. My style at work is to keep those who follow energized with promise and acceptance, and, thus, that is returned to me. I believe in whimsy and whimsy energizes me. I have sisters and friends who believe in me and a wiener dog who keeps me laughing despite the pressures. And I don’t have small children, yet a stepson who has served three tours of duty in Iraq so the emotional strain is quite significant.

Teresa: How is this collection different from your previous ones?

Ann: This collection feels more like my first collection, Come Now to the Window, in that I did not have one topic, as I did in Definite Space. It’s a whirl of poems that came together gracefully only due to Kirsten Dierking’s extraordinary talent in vision and manuscript arrangement. But on the other hand, weaving through them are the gracious experiences of life and what it has to offer. When my second book was in publication mode, I began to write again, stretching towards a new understanding after the effects of the book Definite Space, based on my stepson’s three tours of duty in Iraq as a Military Police Officer and canine dog handler. Art offered and offers me solace. Like right now as I write, I’m thinking of my newest piece out in my makeshift garage/art studio and want to tackle it some more, but the job and life demands, this interview does not. I love it. Staying in the moment of what you love is important and I love this.  Truly I do.

Teresa: How does your practice of art inform your practice of writing and vice versa?

Ann: It’s a peculiar, amazing exchange and happens either in the moment of working in both genres or just on a crazy day of work and then I see or hear something that triggers the connection. When I paint and my mind is clear of crap, often lines come to me. Yet when I write, my mind is not often cleared of crap and so…I think visual arts is often more freeing because you don’t have to worry so much about how it will be interpreted. That could be wildly debated, but in my experience in working in both creative activities, I just get less freaked out when I show a painting or collage to the world or even friends versus a poem.

Teresa: What poets and artists are you most interested in today?

Ann: Joyce Sutphen, Arlinda Henderson, Tim Flugum, Li Young Lee, Mary Oliver and the list goes. Sometimes I am very inclined about reading a book about war. The Holocaust haunts me.

Teresa: What subjects continue to interest you as an artist?

Ann: Big wild flowers. That’s the only thing I know how to do. I’m not a trained artist but just a person who likes color and add beauty to my small world.

Teresa: What advice do you have for other Hamline alumnus who are trying to pursue publication?

Ann: Be good to people, because people are good. Be generous with your love for the world. Start small, publish in local venues first. Don’t disregard what you might think is a trite opportunity. But then go for the gusto and try to crack the glass domes of prestigious journals. Poetry and life are strange and peculiar and beautiful and magnificent, and the best yet: unpredictable. Even in this world intoxicated with technology, there is a place and need for poetry. If it makes you happy to write, keep doing it. It’s your legacy. Throw your hand-held device into the pond and write.

Teresa: Where can we find your book, Art Lessons?

Ann: Hamline bookstore, Amazon, technical devices for reading books (whatever they might be and they are cool though I am not familiar with them,) and small local bookstores as well as mainstream.  

Ann Iverson is a visual artist and poet and has worked in education for years. She holds Masters degrees in both fine arts and liberal studies from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN. Her work has appeared in several literary magazines. Ann’s poetry collections include Come Now to the Window published by Laurel Poetry Collective, Definite Space, and now the soon to be released Art Lessons published by Holy Cow! Press. A few of her poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s public radio segment, ‘Writer's Almanac.’ Ann's artwork was recently selected and installed in the new University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital. 


If you'd like to conduct an interview or be interviewed for the blog, contact us. 
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Come to Jean Larson's Book Release Party This Thursday

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Thursday, September 15 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm

Broadcraft Press has just published Jean's book of poems about the Boundary Waters and Lake Superior.   Please come hear a few of the poems from The Superior Life and celebrate with her!

Micawber's Books

2238 Carter Ave

St. Paul, Minnesota 55108

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Jessica Fox-Wilson's new book!

Dave Bonta started his review by saying, "There are — it occurs to me as I finish this book — too many love poems in the world, and not nearly enough poems about desire."  Another reviewer said, "Poet Jessica Fox-Wilson knows a basic and important truth: we are made of stories.. . . But this poet knows something even more important—we have the ability to re-tell and re-shape those stories, to configure them in line with our own experience and to find a truth in them that isn’t the 'received' truth of their packaging."  (A thoughtful reflection on the themes of wanting and needing can be found here.)

Jessica Fox-Wilson, MFA '05, has released her debut book of poetry, Blameless Mouth. The book explores the cycle of hunger, consumption and satiety. The collection traces the poet’s relationship with hunger from childhood to womanhood, uncovering what it means to feel forever wanting. Her work also considers the cultural legacy of hunger, through stories of starving children and hungry women, like Hansel and Gretel, Persephone, Eve, and others. Blameless Mouth illuminates the struggle of living daily with the contradictory pressures to want less but take more and searches for satiety in a culture that encourages insatiability.

Using retellings of the familiar stories - Grimm's fairy tales, Adam and Eve - Fox-Wilson investigates the female body, its appetites and injuries, the relations between fathers and daughters and between a woman and her own image. Obsessed with violence and its repercussions, these poems imagine an alternate creation myth in which a woman struggles to take control of her own destiny. – Jeannine Hall Gailey, author of Becoming the Villainess

Jessica Fox-Wilson’s poetry casts seasons of light on what it means to be human.  She elevates plain spoken story to elegance, seamlessly weaving narratives to create a lovely kaleidoscopic image. – Darci Schummer, whose fiction has appeared in Conclave:  A Journal of Character, Paper Darts, and Volume One

Jessica Fox-Wilson has written a ferocious, elegant, tough-minded collection of poems.  Her exploration of what it means to be hungry, of what the culture asks of its girls and women, compels the reader's attention and a kind of allegiance with the fierce voice of the narrator.  Braiding myths, tales, and sacred texts with her own compelling present-time narratives, we travel with a poet unafraid to speak truth to power, wherever that power resides, however evident or hidden.  In the poem where she explores the definition of the word, lacuna, the poet gives us this definition: an empty space, a missing portion, in something which is otherwise continuous.  I think of the deep and continuous traditions of poetry, and I think Jessica Fox-Wilson has filled an empty space, a missing portion, with her exceptional, beautifully crafted poems.  Buy this book. Consider it food, a full portion which will leave you satisfied and inspired by her gifts as poet. – Deborah Keenan, author, most recently, of Willow Room, Green Door: New and Selected Poems, Milkweed Editions

If you're interested in learning more about Blameless Mouth, visit the book's Facebook page and the book's website. Blameless Mouth is currently available on Lulu, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.com.

Maya Washington '06 wants your creative writing

Dearest Friends and Creative Fam-

I am editing the White Space Poetry Anthology and I don't have any poems to edit! I sent out the following call for submissions a few weeks ago and have only received a few submissions. Please spread the word, submit your own work and forward this to colleagues. And for all my teaching artist friends, please encourage your star students to submit.

White Space Poetry Anthology
Deadline extended 6/15/10

The White Space Poetry Anthology is a collection of poetry, creative non-fiction, and art that use white space, literal or metaphorical to connect to thoughts and ideas.

We are also interested in voice as it pertains to the artist's point of view: be it regional, cultural or individual perspectives. There are no guidelines with regard to subject matter--we are mostly interested in how you use white space in your work and how it relates to your artistic point of view. Simultaneous and previously published work is welcome. If you are a multi-genre artist, please include pieces that include text and visual art.

Poetry: submit up to 6 poems.

Creative non-fiction: submit up to 6 short prose poems, or short creative non-fiction.

Art Work: submit up to 6 images.

Please send your electronic submission, along with your name, email, postal address, and a brief bio (60 words or less) to whitespacepoetry@gmail.com. Selected submissions will appear in print and online. There is no pay for contributors. If your work is selected you will receive a contributor copy of the anthology and recognition on our site.

- Maya Washington

Did you get something published?

Tell us all about it. :)  We want to rejoice with you (and check it out at the library or buy it at a book store)!

Please email us and include the following information:

• Your name
• Your graduation year
• Name of publication
• Issue/volume
• Name of your piece
• Kind/genre(s) of piece
• Tell us about your piece
• Tell us how you got it published
• What advice from this particular process you would like to pass on

Can't wait to hear from you.

- GLaaS