Maryfrances Wagner launches DIORAMAS, 7 pm May 28, Raven Bookstore

See Maryfrances Wagner read from her new Mammoth book DIORAMAS, at Big Tent, 7 pm May 28, 7 East 7th St. (Raven Bookstore) in Lawrence! In an upcoming review, Charlotte Mandel writes, "These poems gift us with vibrant vignettes." Here's a sample:

RED-EYED CICADAS

Flutter and sputter, they motored in spurts.
They wobbled, tottered, popped from shrubs.
In their climb they lumbered one leaf at a time.
Shells clung to fences, bark, flower stems.
Mud tombs funneled the earth, life
in reverse. For days they spiraled up,
lopsided as choppers carrying heavy loads;
their voices were engines trying to turn.
Within a week, the full throttle of clack
and whine trilled from the highest limbs,
a bacchanal we couldn’t unplug. On every
walk one spun like a toppled windup toy
or reflected its iridescence from gutter
or lawn until one day the last sputter
fizzled out, and they were gone.

(c. 2015 Maryfrances Wagner. Used with permission)

About DIORAMAS: Maryfrances Wagner reinvents the process of memory as she guides readers through living tableaux of her past. Her views of Italian American life in the heartland annotates a rich cultural heritage. This award-winning poet shares a rich store of vivid imagery and passion, whimsy and reflection. Maryfrances Wagner lives in Kansas City, where she is a literary advocate and community builder. Wagner's writings about Italian American life have been anthologized by Pearson/Longman and others. Her work appears in New Letters, Laurel Review, Birmingham Review, Nebraska Review, Midwest Quarterly, and others. Her previous books of poetry include Salvatore's Daughter (BkMk), Red Silk (Mid-America), winner of the Thorpe Menn Book Award for Literary Excellence), and Light Subtracts Itself (Mid-American). She co-edits I-70 Review. William Trowbridge, Poet Laureate of Missouri, writes, "The poems in Dioramas focus mainly on moments lost to the sneak-thief Time, moments sometimes observed with an apt touch of humor. Whether she's writing about her Italian brother's blip of fame dancing past a lower corner of the TV picture in an Arthur Murray Party broadcast or about a good friend dying of AIDS or about the evanescent beauty of cicadas, Maryfrances Wagner does so with passion and craftsmanship, showing what a gifted poet with a generous heart can do."

Israel Wasserstein writes "How It Is for Eyeless Things in Caves" and more in prize-winning book.

Israel Wasserstein of Washburn University will read from his book This Ecstasy They Call Damnation and new works April 24, Thurs., at the Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, 7 p.m., with Joseph Harrington. He is a life-long Kansan, and that mythos/landscape enters his work in diction as well as topics. In an interview with Miranda Ericsson, he says, “I think open landscape, and wide spaces under a sky that seems to go on forever, are always there in my poetry, even poems that don’t have anything directly to do with landscape.” In this poem, he seeks the inverse of sky, deep cave topography. Rather than sight, touch becomes the primary touch. For a sky person, this is a phantasmagoria

How It Is for Eyeless Things in Caves

Maybe they wander in, foraging deep down
for food or seeking shelter, and they get lost far
beneath the surface. Or they decide
they like it in the dampness
of the earth, where predators venture
rarely, and sunlight does not scorch
them.
        Slowly they forget
the things they saw above, the harsh light
receding into memory,
into carefully forgotten dreams.
Then they lose sight itself
and creep along, cold as stone.
Their children are born
        knowing nothing else.

Wasserstein says of his new work, in his interview for Ericsson and the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library: “A lot of what I have is more explicitly autobiographical than much of what I’ve done previously. And there are a series of poems in the voices of villains, especially horror movie villains. I’ve long loved persona poems, and I’m engaged with pop culture and interested in marginalized voices, and I think these poems allow me to explore all of that at once.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, Israel Wasserstein received his BA in English from Washburn University, and his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico. He is currently a Lecturer in English at Washburn University. . His work has been published in Flint Hills Review, Red Mesa Review, Border, seveneightfive, Senses, Fickle Muses, Inscape, and others. He has also contributed work to the anthologies Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems, A Face to Meet the Faces, and Earthships. His poetry collection, This Ecstasy They Call Damnation, was published in 2012 and received a Kansas Notable Book Award.

LANGSTON HUGHES WRITING CONTEST DEADLINE IS DEC. 10, 2010

The Lawrence Arts Center and the Raven Book Store announce their sponsorships of the 2011 Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award. Two awards of $500 each will be given annually, one in the area of poetry and one in the area of fiction.


APPLICATION DEADLINE IS DECEMBER 10, 2010 All manuscripts will be submitted electronically, via email. Please submit the materials according to SUBMISSION GUIDELINES as an attachment to the following email address: lhsubmissions@lawrenceartscenter.org. See details at http://www.lawrenceartscenter.org/Storypages/2010/Langston-Hughes-Award.html

Writer Eligibility:
• Writers of poetry or fiction
• Writers currently living in Douglas County and who have lived here for one year prior to submission of materials
• Writers who are 21 years old or older
• Writers who have published a book-length volume of poetry or fiction are not eligible. (Self-published works are exempted.)
• Previous winners are not eligible.

Selection: Selection will be based on artistic quality as presented in materials submitted and will be made by a committee of outstanding regional writers. The committee reserves the right to issue no awards.Sponsors of the Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award: The Raven Bookstore and The Lawrence Arts Center.

Growing up in Lawrence prepared Langston Hughes (1902-1967) to understand the difficulties of a racist society as well as the complexities of life itself. He responded by writing in diverse genres--poetry, fiction, drama, memoir, travel narrative--and in diverse styles, drawing on the rich culture of African Americans and the many voices of American democracy. His writing reflected this diversity--shifting from the psychological and political to the lyrical, the tragic, the humorous, crossing literary boundaries, always experimental, always seeking to express a clearer, more memorable vision of the reality he experienced. The Langston Hughes Award seeks to encourage and support poets and writers who, today, are continuing to present their life experiences creatively through poetry, stories, and non-fiction prose. Surprise us. Move us. Help us see ourselves and our lives in new ways.

Reading tonight at the Raven Bookstore will feature new edition of Kansas Poems of William Stafford

KANSAS POEMS OF WILLIAM STAFFORD:
POEMS, ESSAYS & INTERVIEWS

Edited by Denise Low

Commentary by Thomas Fox Averill, Kirsten Bosnak, Robert Day, Steven Hind, Jonathan Holden, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Denise Low, Al Ortolani, Linda Rodriguez, Ralph Salisbury, William Sheldon, Kim Stafford, Robert Stewart, Ingrid Wendt and Fred Whitehead

______________________________________________
Publication Date: August 1, 2010
ISBN 978-0-9817334-6-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2010925068
Perfect-bound paper edition, 210 pages, $15.00
Woodley Memorial Press, Washburn University Topeka, KS 66621

(785) 670-1445 http://www.washburn.ed/reference/woodley-press/
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Woodley Memorial Press reissues an expanded edition of the 1990 Kansas Poems of William Stafford. Stafford, a National Book Award winner, wrote directly and indirectly about his home region throughout his life. The original edition collected many poems about the Great Plains region not published in book form. New essays, memories, poems, and interviews expand the range of the original book. They show the lasting influence of this beloved teacher and writer. Commentary by his son Kim Stafford and fellow writers show how his influence continues to inspire readers and poets everywhere.
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Kim Stafford: You see his devotion to hometown, to friendship, to ideas, to peacemaking, sense of place.

Robert Day: I was Bill Stafford's student because I learned from him about writing and life: Do it all and do it all now.

Steven Hind: William Stafford’s words are both good poetry and good medicine, antidote to the poisons of self-aggrandizement and its blurring of perception. He is a tonic for the mind.

Jonathan Holden: Wiry, elfin, with the face of a fox, Stafford was curious about everything around him, absolutely alert.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg: Stafford guides me as a writer when it comes to his quiet turns of language, his spare and precise images, his direct and earnest voice, but mostly he guides me as a human.

Denise Low: Stafford was a revolutionary decades before the Civil Rights movement. He committed himself to activist writings.

Lawrence Panel on National Book Critics Circle "Good Reads"

Posted on Crtical Mass, blog for National Book Critics Circle, Feb. 8

http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/

Panelists and audience looked over the NBCC’s Good Reads Winter List and the 2007 NBCC Awards Finalists list, available as a handout, Feb. 10 as they dialogued about recommended books. They created their own list as they discussed the Kansas City-Lawrence book scene. The panel consisted of NBCC members John Mark Eberhart, Kathleen Johnson, and Denise Low, and independent bookstore owner Pat Kehde.The panel praised the NBCC lists for being driven by quality, noting that the best seller lists of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune are all driven by profit. The panel noted that 291,000 books are published every year, so these lists really are helpful for helping to sort them. Eberhart, the books page editor of the Kansas City Star, liked the idea of recommended readings rather than books that should get awards. The panel agreed that many of the books on the finalist list were accomplished but less accessible to the general reader. Independent bookstore veteran Kehde, who recently sold her store The Raven to another independent owner, described the New York Times bestseller list process (The Raven is a participating store) and noted that the Lawrence store’s best sellers more closely align with the San Francisco Chronicle list than that of the New York Times. ... (Go to Critical Mass for full article)