"On Poetry" online KC Star: James Tate, Lucille Clifton, Wendell Berry, & C.P. Cavafy

My recent column reviews new collections by these distinguished poets! It begins:
"A poet’s collected works is a type of autobiography. The first section, the earliest books, often sets the direction of style, themes and even personal details. James Tate’s much anthologized poem “The Lost Pilot,” in his debut book from the late 1960s, is an example. Indeed, it is about Tate’s father, who was killed in World War II. The overlap of verse and biography charges the poem with electricity. Midcareer books of poems develop themes further and, if the poet is good, add depth. Finally, the last poems are the culmination, where verse gains patina or dulls.

Exceptional poets inspire editors to compile the poets’ work for the future. Among those whose collected or selected works have been published recently are Tate, a former Kansas Citian;  the late Lucille Clifton, an African-American woman whose work centers on justice; Wendell Berry, an activist farmer-poet;and C.P. Cavafy, an Egyptian poet of the Greek diaspora. All these versifiers continue to influence poets today.
James Tate

Publicity photo by Stephen Long

Tate, who grew up in Raytown, has won the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and other major recognition for his sleek, off-balance compositions. His new “Eternal Ones of the Dream: Selected Poems 1990-2010,” a late-career book, narrates plausible situations that go awry. He continues surreal monologues in which he could be the narrator until facts do not add up. Tate takes ordinary expressions and turns them into comedy. “I love my funny poems,” he says in an interview with poet Charles Simic in the Paris Review, “but I’d rather break your heart.” Most of his poems do both."

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/21/3824796/collected-works-tell-poets-life.html#.UF8d95PqouI.twitter#storylink=cpy

See Lenape Code Presentation! Oct. 24, Park University

DENISE LOW

Dr. Denise Low-Weso, former Kansas Poet Laureate, has published over 20 books of poetry and essays, including Ghost Stories of the New West (Woodley), named one of the best Native American Books of 2010 by The Circle of Minneapolis and a Kansas Notable Book. Low is a 5th generation Kansan of mixed German, British, Lenape (Delaware), and Cherokee heritage and earned an MFA from Wichita State University and a PhD is from the University of Kansas. She teaches in the Baker University School of Professional and Graduate Studies, freelances, and consults. She has taught at Haskell Indian Nations University, the University of Kansas, and the University of Richmond. She is a 2008-2013 board member of the Associated Writers and Writing Programs, which she has served as president. Low has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, The Newberry Library, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Kansas Arts Council, the Sequoyah National Research Center, and the Kansas Center for the Book. She is currently at work on a USA Artists project, The Lenape Code: Explorations in Delaware Arts, about the continuity of Algonquin traditions across time and geographies. Read an interview with Denise in Raintaxi Read about The Lenape Code project October 24, 2012Park University The Meetin' House Parkville, MO 64152 6:30 Reception 7:00 Reading

ALICE AZURE WINS WORDCRAFT CIRCLE OF NATIVE WRITERS AWARD FOR POETRY

One of the characteristics of Native writing is its immediate engagement with history. A corollary is the simultaneity of past, present, and future. Mi’kmaq Métis author Alice Azure, in her new book Games of Transformation, illustrates the fluidity of time. The entire book is about the pre-contact city Cahokia, a trade city just off the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Over a hundred mounds remain, despite farming.

The poem “Moon of Blinding Snow” starts with a winter scene, then shifts into another dimension. This poem begins with strong imagery, as “snow and sleet whack at my house.” This is a typical Midwestern scene. Then it shifts, in the second stanza, to the time of Cahokia. She describes the winters of those days, and their cost in fuel. This shifts into contemporary worries about the future. As winter season begins in the Midwest, this poem has important alarms for everyone. It also asserts a Native presence. Critic Siobhan Senier writes of Games of Transformation: “she subverts the US national imaginary by calling into being a Native community and a Native future” (MELUS 37.1,2012).

 This is an important book for all who dwell on Earth. It shows an engaged, ethical traveler through all times.

Moon of Blinding Snow

Layers of sweaters don’t keep me warm

as snow and sleet whack at my house.
The cat and I hunker down in front
of our wood-burning fireplace,
while the weatherman announces
record-breaking snow.
 

After Cahokia’s five thousand campfires

burned day and night for two hundred years,
after the trees were gone from the land,
how did the ancients keep themselves arm?
After the ice caps, ethanol and oil go bust,
will the polar bears, cat and I
be lucky to find enough dry land
to sustain trees and corn—a fire or two?

 Alice Azure’s writings have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies such as The Florida Review; Native Literatures: Generations; and Yellow Medicine Review. Her recent book of poetry Games of Transformation (Chicago: Albatross Press, 2011) won the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers 2012 poetry award. Her memoir, Along Came a Spider (2011), is from Bowman Books. She grew up in the Connecticut River Valley—Cromwell, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts—and earned an M.A. degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Iowa. A Mi’kmaq Métis, her roots are in the Kespu’kwitk District of Nova Scotia. She lives in Maryville, Illinois, close to her four grandchildren. See her website at www.aliceazure.com

Robert Day Publishes Story in NUMERO CINQ MAGAZINE

http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2012/08/29/sometimes-it-is-sometimes-it-isnt-fiction-robert-day-2/

Robert Day has been my mentor and friend many decades. He is a terrific guide to the joys of living a literate life. This story shows his accessible narrator--I always enter his stories effortlessly, and then don't want them to end. Ed Ruhe used to compare reading his stories to eating candy. Pure pleasure.

I'm pleased to see my photo of Bob Day hunting in the layout here. It was late fall just outside of Bly, Kansas, pleasant weather but snow still on the ground, the dog kept chasing birds and leaves, and we went home empty handed but happy. Along the way, we met Mr. Bison, part of a local herd. We had bison meatloaf for dinner with the rancher who raised it. Memorable.
Even better news is New Letters of the University of Missour-Kansas City is publishing his new book of short stories in September! They have published a number of short stories in their journal in recent years.

Association of Writers & Writing Programs has writers' directory on its new website.

Association of Writers & Writing Programs

USA Artists LENAPE CODE Project Ends Today! Please Donate!

Please consider donations! for this project, which ends at midnight today. Only a few hours remain. This is an all-or-nothing fundraising model, so we need one last push to keep all funds raised to date.

The project, about Lenape (Delaware) heritage, is a collaboration of artists, musician, and my text. I found that my family tombstones in the Flint Hills are engraved with Algonquin beadwork designs! Since then I have found specifically the medicine wheel, or "Ojibwa Rose" design, has a history that extends back to 17th century treaty signatures and petroglyphs in Central Park, NYC. All these are part of the multi-layered project.

This visual and creative text will include my text, artists’ prints by Paul Hotvedt and Clare Doveton, music by Stephen Howard (he does the video soundtrack), an electronic version, and further expressions. Perks include print and electronic access to these creations.

Roger Shimomura nominated me for USA Artists, the fundraising organization that backsprojects across the country, and I appreciate his faith in me. Thanks to more than 50 people who have donated.

With much appreciation,

Denise

http://www.usaprojects.org/project/lenape_codes_explorations_in_delaware_arts

PAUL HOTVEDT & CLARE DOVETON are artists for Lenape Code Project. 2 Days Left!

Paul Hotvedt 2006

Good news--Paul Hotvedt and Clare Doveton have agreed to be artists working with the Lenape Code project. See Paul's work at http://paulhotvedt.com/. He and I have collaborated on the From the Ground Up project, http://www.groundsite.org/home.shtml , and he has work in collections from Baltimore to Santa Fe. He has degrees from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and the Maryland Institute. Clare Doveton received her BFA in Fine Arts Painting at Parsons School of Art and Design. Over the last 18 years, she has shown in galleries throughout New York City, San Francisco, and the Midwest. In 2004 she moved her studio to Kansas. She has a site on FaceBook and also http://www.claredoveton.com/  Perks for this project will include signed work by the artists as well as text and sound by Stephen Howard. Time is short. Please help the Lenape Code collaborative project become a reality. 100% of the funding must be achieved by Aug. 20, midnight. A donor’s button is on the site: ttp://www.usaprojects.org/project/lenape_codes_explorations_in_delaware_arts

Clare Doveton "While You Were Sleeping" 2012

Lenape Codes: Explorations in Delaware Arts

Lenape Codes: Explorations in Delaware Arts: <p>This project evolved through a memoir I began writing on my grandfather, a Lenape(Delaware) American Indian, in an attempt to explore my personal heritage andthe facets of his American indigenous identity. These were suppressed by thesocio-political pressures of his lifetime. My research uncovered an unknownglyphic language that expanded the scope of my memoir into a multi-media piecethat explores graveyard symbolism. Algonquian people like the Lenape usedimages that preserved clues to their tribal identities and historical eventsnot otherwise documented.&nbsp;</p><p>I isolated the marble tombstones, ornamented with woodland motifs and specifically the &ldquo;Ojibway Rose&rdquo; as the primary source to explore the imagery and significance of this glyphic language.&nbsp; The tombstones also mark the path of the Algonquian Indians from Great Plains back to the place of contact betweenEuropeans and Algonquian bands on the East Coast. The connotative symbolism of the Rose represents everything from the spiritual and ceremonial tradition to prayer, healing, Earth, and plant life. I refer to the format of this piece as a &ldquo;creative text&rdquo; because it is composed of assembled photographs, maps, documents, and my own response in the

AWP 2013 Conference Features Nobelists Walcott and Heaney

Seamus Heaney

The 2013 AWP Annual Conference and Bookfair will be in Boston March 6-9, 2013, at the Sheraton Boston Hotel & Hynes Convention Center. Keynote speakers will be Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney, both of whom have won Nobel Prizes in poetry. For more information, see the AWP link:
http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2013headlinersbios.php

I have followed both of their works since the 1980s. Both are incredible, but I had the pleasure of spending time with Heaney years ago.

Derek Walcott

 In 1985, I had the pleasure to be at a very small conference that featured Seamus Heaney as keynote. I took a van full of Haskell Indian Nations University, then Haskell Indian Junior College, students to Pittsburg State in southeast Kansas to be part of the Kansas Writers Association, a state group of college creative writing departments and independent writers. Most of us were AWP members also. Michael Heffernan was one of the organizers, as well as Stephen Meats, poetry editor of Midwest Quarterly, and the special collections librarian, Gene DeGruson. Altogether maybe there were 75 attendees. This background helps to explain the intimacy of the event.

Heaney did his keynote, and I remember his chattiness and charm. His poems had sounds I had not heard arranged so densely in a poem. His poems taught me about country life in Ireland and those politics as well. He was companionable, comfortable, and engaging as a reader. But also, despite his reputation, even then, he participated and seemed to enjoy all the events. He did not present his talk, collect a check, and speed away to the airport.

For me the greatest moment came during the open mic. All the visiting program directors read, and he paid rapt attention. Although I was dry-mouthed, I stood up at my turn, read a few poems, and got caught up in the words; I hammed it up a bit. I had the sense he was encouraging some of the local texture I was adding to the poems. Heaney applauded and congratulated me afterwards. Perhaps he was just being polite, but I was thrilled. It buoyed me through the next years of learning the craft. I will never forget his kindness at that time, when he was prominent but not yet a superstar. His hair was coal black, his words apt, his heart kind.

Early Review of CONJURO by Xanath Caraza Posted on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/Conjuro-Xanath-Caraza/dp/0983799563/ref=cm_cr-mr-img See Xanath Caraza's new book of poetry Conjuro reviewed early on Amazon--first review! The book is also available through www.mammothpublications.com (just email mammothpubs@hotmail.com ). Congratutlations to her for this excellent book of poetry. Here's a comment from the introduction by Fred Arroyo:

Is there a way to be gone and still 

belong? Travel that takes you home?

Is that life?—to stand by a river and go?[i]

—William Stafford, “Quo Vadis”

In these lines I read filaments Xánath Caraza weaves into her vivid, incantatory, and enchanting Conjuro. Caraza is a poet who travels across languages and geographies, histories and identities, in conjuring a new language that helps her to travel home. Through this poetic journey—part American Indian (Nahuatl), part African, part Midwestern American, and part European—she calls on her readers to experience within poetry’s music the feeling of being gone yet still needing to belong. I evoke Stafford simply because he’s often remembered for growing up in Kansas, where his imagination became rooted and restless, and although he lived a majority of his poetic life outside Kansas, Stafford became the great American poet from the Middle West—and I make this connection in order to read and place Xánath Caraza’s poetic achievement within this heartland, while also considering how Caraza poetically dwells within and travels from the Middle West; navigates rich and strong linguistic currents; and creates a terrestrial tapestry that shares the magical enchantment of her poetry. Xánath Caraza is a scholar, teacher, and activist—a poeta deeply residing in the earth. The speaker of “Of Synonyms, Euphemisms, and Other Figures of Speech” sings:

Freedom and education are synonyms for me.

Professor, teacher, and social activist, are likewise.

Pronouncing ancestral languages of my heritage is resistance.

The voice of the Sun is a euphemism.

The SB 1070 Arizona law is as a shame. A simile.

Wind brings the time of freedom to the silence of the desert. An alliteration. (47)

(Prose from Fred Arroyo's introduction to Conjuro)

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[i] The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 1998, p. 38.