See you in Portland: MFA @ AWP ’19
WWCMFA @ AWP PORTLAND 2019
IF WE MISSED YOUR PANEL or IF YOU HAVE UPDATES, PLEASE LET US KNOW!
| Thursday, March 28 |
9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
R111. The Development of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry in the Last Five Years.
Matthew Silverman, Susan Cohen, Philip Terman, Patty Seyburn, Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet
A103-104, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Come join us for the five-year anniversary of an important anthology that explores the thoughts, concerns, and experiences of Jewish poets today. One of the editors and five contributors to The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry will read from their work and reflect upon how Jewish American poetry has changed in the last five years with the developments in politics and the rise of anti-Semitism while still exploring the heart of Jewish traditions that honor the human spirit.
R114. Writing the Transcendent.
Courtney Sender, Goldie Goldbloom,Yehoshua November, Sarah Stone, Rahul Kanakia
A107-109 Convention Center, Level 1
In our most enduring literature, the reader often experiences something ungraspable: a sudden sense of loss or delight or elevation, just beyond the realm of conscious reckoning. In this panel, we call it transcendence, and ask: What is that feeling, anyway? How do you write toward it? What’s the relationship between the divine, the inspirational, the science fictional or fantastical? In this panel, five diverse writers of the numinous and otherworldly discuss the deep mysteries of writing.
R120. Kenyon Review 80thAnniversary Reading.
Dana Levin, Tess Taylor, Patricia Engel, Keith S. Wilson, Misha Rai
B 117-119 Convention Center, Level 1
The Kenyon Review celebrates 80 years of publishing new and established voices in contemporary literature. Featuring a diverse selection of KR contributors as well as the latest KR Fellows, this reading will offer a range of styles and viewpoints. Since its founding in 1939, the Kenyon Review has constantly evolved. Now a bimonthly print magazine and thriving online journal, KRplans to celebrate this anniversary by looking ahead. What comes next?
10:30 to 11:45 a.m.
R147. The Heart is a Muscle: Poetry of Protest.
Amie Whittemore, Kendra DeColo, Cortney Lamar Charleston, José Olivarez, Matthew Olzmann (A105 Convention Center, Level 1)
Anger, outrage, and indignation have pushed us into the streets, marching for women, for immigrants, for Black lives. Yet, rage alone will not feed us; social change requires both respite and revelry to be sustainable. As Emma Goldman noted, a revolution without dancing isn’t worth having. To embody this spirit, established and emerging poets read their poems of protest, embracing both tenderness and fury as their work invites us to recognize ourselves in our enemies, our hearts in each other.
12:00 to 1:15 p.m.
R182. Poetic Strategies for Raising the Dead.
Owen Lewis, Kamilah Moon, Ben Purkert, Kate Daniels, Laure-Anne Bosselaar
A105 Convention Center, Level 1
The dead often walk in and out of poetry as if they were still alive. How do poets achieve a seamless transit between worlds? Five poets will discuss their own and others’ techniques for realizing resurrection on the page. Also considered: the many purposes for bringing back the dead. How do poems enable us to mourn and commune with those not here? We will examine poetry’s role in shaping our public and private histories, allowing us to rewrite those histories and new meaning to the past.
R189. Radiance versus Ordinary Light: A Tribute to Carl Phillips.
Rickey Laurentiis, Dawn Lundy Martin, Justin Phillip Reed, Erin Belieu, Carl Phillips
B116 Convention Center, Level 1
At a time when to speak candidly about the vagaries of erotic, sexual and moral life was still taboo, Carl Phillips broke into the American literary landscape to amass a signature body of work earning him near legendary critical acclaim and respect. Especially for queer poets of color who follow him, his influence and literary friendship spanning nearly thirty years is no less essential. This diverse panel of poets celebrates that radiating legacy, ending with a reading by Carl Phillips himself.
R193. Putting Together a First Book: Kate Tufts Winners Tell How They Did It.
Barbara Hamby, Adrian Blevins, Cate Marvin Dupont, Phillip Williams
C125-126 Convention Center, Level 1
How does a poet go about putting together a first book? Winners of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award will discuss the writing, compiling, and publishing of their first books, delving into the setbacks, failures, and rejections they experienced as well as the acceptances and successes.
R198. Page Meets Stage .
Taylor Mali, Mark Doty, Anis Mojgani, Shayla Lawson, Seema Reza
D137-138 Convention Center, Level 1
Where does poetry live? Where does it breathe? And what makes it dance? This reading will answer those questions insufficiently but entertainingly. Modeled after the popular 14-year-old series at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, four poets who occupy different places on the continuum from page to stage—from the National Book Award to the National Poetry Slam—read “popcorn style,” with no set order and sometimes not even a set list in an ongoing poetic conversation.
1:30 to 2:45 p.m.
R219. Voice, Style, Difference.
David Baker, Ann Townsend, Jos Charles, Solmaz Sharif
B 110-112 Convention Center, Level 1
Find your voice! But how? Where is it? We hold that voice is a result rather than a means. So we look at the relation of voice to style, as we consider how a poet’s stance and “voice” are enabled–even created–by compositional features like idiom, syntax, form, and measurement, as these “technical” practices lead toward both poetry and personality. In other words, how is voice an accomplishment of style? Panelists will range through history and their own experience as critics and poets.
R234. Give a Good Reading.
Angel Nafis, Hieu Min Nguyen, Leigh Lucas, Mike Goetzman
E141-142 Convention Center, Level 1
Writers are entertainers. And yet, sometimes we’re the worst presenters of our own writing. Why do we spend so much time composing and editing and so little time practicing reading our work? Who are readers we love and what can we learn from them? How can we better prepare, more frequently share, and give life to our work off the page?
3:00 to 4:15 p.m.
R266. UnBiography: Creating Fictional Characters from Factual People.
Caitlin Horrocks, Jasmin Darznik, Peter Ho Davies, Zachary Lazar, Megan Mayhew Bergman
D133-134 Convention Center, Level 1
Transfiguring historical figures into fictional characters asks the writer to grapple not only with craft challenges, but questions of genre, ethics, and research. Does the artist who uses a real subject for inspiration inevitably become Robert de Montesquiou’s “thief of souls”? How faithful can or should writers be to the historical record? How do writers research that record without becoming paralyzed by it? Panelists will discuss big picture questions and offer practical suggestions.
R280. PSA Presents: Dorothea Lasky, Roger Reeves, and Solmaz Sharif.
Dorothea Lasky, Solmaz Sharif, Roger Reeves, Kimiko Hahn
Oregon Ballroom 201-202, Level 2
A reading featuring three nationally recognized, award-winning, distinct contemporary poets. The audience will hear selections from these poets’ lauded recent collections, in addition to new work.
R281. The Influence Lab.
Catherine Barnett, Hafizah Geter, Mary Szybist, Vievee Francis, Michael Morse
Portland Ballroom 251, Convention Center, Level 2
Poets discuss the power and dangers of influence. What, for example, are the hazards of appropriation? The pleasure of homage, borrowing, theft, allusion? This panel illuminates ongoing conversations poets have with their precursors, examining how contemporary poets have challenged, extended, deepened, and reinhabited earlier texts and art. Highlighting the many kinds of influence that fuel our work, this panel provides useful strategies for transforming a classroom into an “Influence Lab.”
4:30 to 5:45 p.m.
R295B. The Art of the Craft Talk: Tips from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference Faculty.
Charlotte Wyatt, Lan Samantha Chang, Daniel Orozco, Michael Byers, Angela Pneuman
B117-119 Convention Center, Level 1
Writers are asked to give craft talks at literary festivals, writers’ conferences, book tours, and classroom visits. With unfamiliar audiences and limited time, the selection of topics, texts, and delivery methods becomes a set of important considerations. Moderated by an MFA candidate, this panel of fiction faculty from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference offers both innovative and tried-and-true approaches for writers who are beginning to develop these important professional skills.
R312. Tips From the Wired Trenches: Tactics for Teaching Creative Writing Online.
Deborah Hall, Brigitte Byrd, Jocelyn Cullity, Jen McClanaghan, Janet Sylvester
F150 Convention Center, Level 1
As courses increasingly move to online platforms, creative writing instructors must translate their classroom activities to online environments for a variety of courses catering to diverse students. In this panel, we’ll share tips on generating community, engaging close reading, implementing workshops and inspiring creativity and internet adventures like WebQuests. We will share our favorite apps, sites, platforms, and strategies for thriving in the wired trenches of online learning.
R318. The National Book Critics Circle Presents: Paul Beatty and Joan Silber .
Portland Ballroom 253-254 Convention Center, Level 2
Two National Book Critics Circle honored novelists—Paul Beatty and Joan Silber—read from their work and talk with NBCC President Kate Tuttle about inspiration, research, awards (Beatty also won the Man Booker; Silber, the PEN/Faulkner), evolving forms, writing about race, the unique challenges of writing in these times, and the imaginative process that shapes their originality. Consider this a dual master class in the art of fiction.
7:15 to 8:30 pm
R346. Women’s Caucus .
Melissa Studdard, Hafizah Geter, Kelly Forsythe, Lynn Melnick, Jenn Givhan
E145 Convention Center, Level1
The Women’s Caucus offers a space to network, plan events, and discuss issues concerning women writers (e.g. ways to support each other, lack of access to literary power structures, conference childcare, obstacles to publication, keeping literary events safe, etc.). This year’s panel includes two guest editors who will speak and answer questions about publishing and what they look for in manuscripts. The Women’s Caucus is an inclusive space and welcomes the diverse perspectives of women writers.
| Friday, March 29 |
10:30 to 11:45
F158. You Want It Darker: The Care and Feeding of Darker Narratives.
CJ Hribal, Vu Tran, Nami Mun, Goldie Goldbloom,Dean Bakopoulos
D131-132 Convention Center, Level 1
Writers are “supposed” to write likeable characters with narrative arcs that bend toward, if not justice, at least redemption. But what if things instead bend sinister, descend into the dark, and possibly stay there? How does one write narratives that engage with the calamitous, the violent, the pessimistic, the tragic, while avoiding the gratuitous? Five fiction writers discuss narrative techniques gleaned from some of their favorite narratives where the authors grapple with the dark.
F161. Writing Beyond Borders: Tools and Strategies for Teaching Multilingual Writing. .
Ana Menéndez, Charles Donate, Mia Leonin, Sandra Castillo
D136 Convention Center, Level 1
How do we engage all our students’ linguistic selves? In Miami, we are developing a community of practice to deepen multilingual creative writing pedagogy. This panel begins with a few exercises and a brief history (and justification) of multilingualism in the workshop before exploring specific pedagogical practices including the use of language portraits, spoken-word videos, and assorted writing prompts and activities.
F177A. Reinventing the Wheel: The Tradition of Innovation in Poetry.
Kazim Ali, Jenny Johnson, Traci Brimhall, Vandana Khanna, Blas Flaconer)
Portland Ballroom 256, Convention Center, Level 2
Sidney famously writes, “And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way” (“Astrophel and Stella”). However, one would only need to read Homer, Virgil, and Dante, the letters between Wordsworth and Coleridge or Moore and Bishop, to recognize the long tradition of poets mentoring and inspiring other poets. The poets will challenge the notion that tradition and innovation are at odds by revealing how specific poems influenced them and led them to better understand different poetic elements.
F182. Of Color: Poets’ Ways of Making—Readings from Essays on Transformative Poetics.
Addie Tsai, Jose Araguz, Melissa Coss Aquino, Luisa Igloria, Amanda Galvan Huynh
A106 Convention Center, Level 1
Of Color: Poets’ Ways of Making: An Anthology of Essays on Transformative Poetics brings together the voices of fifteen poets of color, foregrounding craft and poetics. The essays discuss mentorship, models and frameworks of/for writing, the joys and perils of writing in/with/against/making new forms. Contributors will read from their essays and answer questions about the importance of writing craft essays from the perspective and experience of writers of color within the current political climate.
12:00 to 1: 15 p.m.
F200. Writers as Translators, Translators as Writers.
Goeffrey Brock, Brooks Haxton, Mónica de la Torre, Bill Johnston, Jennifer Grotz
E143-144 Convention Center, Level 1
Readers, writers, and translators alike discover at some point that mastery of the source language alone can’t guarantee the success of a translation: A literary translation succeeds to the extent that it’s a compelling work of art in its target language. In this panel covering a variety of languages, traditions, and time periods, five esteemed faculty of the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference—successful writers and translators themselves—each examine poets or writers whose translation activity spurred innovation in their creative work or vice versa.
Allama Iqbal’s Diasporic Children: A Reading by Pakistani American Poets
Shadab Zeest Hashmi, Faisal Mohyuddin, Adeeba Talukdar, and Raza Ali Hassan
E146, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
F206. Making Sure Everyone is Here: The Empathetic Classroom as Inclusive Space.
Katie Peterson, Kimberly Grey, Kathleen Spada, F. Douglas Brown, Chiyuma Elliot(
F151 Convention Center, Level 1
“Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing.” These are just some of the ideas presented by Leslie Jamison in her provocative book The Empathy Exams. On this panel, teachers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines discuss strategies, uses, and misuses of empathy in the classroom. Each panelist explores a different aspect of empathy as a way of broadening the discussion of empathy’s pedagogic function.
F211. Poets Writing Whiteness, Presented by The Racial Imaginary Institute.
Monica Youn, Sharon Olds, Shane McRae, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, Joy Katz
Portland Ballroom 252, Convention Center, Level 2
This panel presents four poets whose work has explicitly confronted whiteness, moderated by The Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII) member Monica Youn. TRII brings together artists and thinkers to mark, challenge, and beset white dominance, to make visible what has been presented as inevitable so that we can transform our imaginings of race. We hope to catalyze other writers and artists to reimagine our racial pathologies, to scrutinize not only obvious bigotry but also our own complicity.
1:30 to 2:45 p.m.
F244. A Reading & Conversation with Kaveh Akbar, Jos Charles, and Fady Joudah,
Victoria Chang , Fady Joudah, Jos Charles, Kaveh Akbar
Oregon Ballroom 201-202 Convention Center, Level 2
Three award-winning poets sharing their most recent work: In Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance, Fady Joudah finds tenderness for the other, the dead, and the disappeared. In feeld, Jos Charles offers a lyrical unraveling of the circuity of gender and speech. In Calling a Wolf a Wolf, Kaveh Akbar confronts addiction and the strenuous path of recovery, beginning with the wilds of the mind. Introduced and moderated by Victoria Chang.
F249. Act of Gratitude: Poetry International’s 20th Anniversary Celebratory Reading.
Sherwin Bitsui, Catherine Barnett,Jennifer Minniti- Shippey
Portland Ballroom 255, Convention Center, Level 1
This event celebrates twenty years of Poetry International’s commitment to increasing the presence of global literature translated into English, and to placing that work in conversation with exciting voices in English-language literature. Come hear acclaimed poets, translators, and members of our editorial staff read and discuss contemporary literature.
F250. Me Too: Writing Your Way Through (and Out of) Childhood Sexual Abuse.
Nickole Brown, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Dorianne Laux, Richard Hoffman, Kamilah Aisha Moon
Portland Ballroom 256, Convention Center, Level 2
How to write the fragmented, charged, often shameful memory of childhood sexual abuse in a way that isn’t mired in self-pity, rage, or the standard-issue language of confession? And how to excavate a history half- or mis- remembered, as early trauma often is? What are the pitfalls when writing becomes therapy and when publishing becomes public? Five poets discuss their struggles with these questions as both writers and teachers to make poems that demonstrate the courage to heal.
3:00 to 4:15 p.m.
F254. Between the Margins and Mainstream: Liminal Spaces of Jewish American Literature.
Jacob Appel, Molly Antopol, Alicia Jo Rabins,Aaron Tillman, Erika Meitner
A103-104 Convention Center, Level 1
For many American Jews, being “Jewish” is not a religious nor an ethnic signifier; Jewish Americans have diverse conceptions of marriage, gender, culture, and spiritual practice. While Jewish identity remains, it is not easily classifiable in social or literary spheres. How does this anomalous position play out in contemporary Jewish American literature? This panel of Jewish-identified writers and performers will address how they and others have grappled with an increasingly elusive identity.
F257. Mountain Writers Center – A Nonprofit Model (1993–2003) .
Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Michael Robins, Jennifer Grotz, Michael Dickman
A107-109 Convention Center, Level 1
After twenty years of building a regional network, in 1993, Mountain Writers opened the first writer’s center in Oregon, immediately increasing funding for NW literary activity—readings, workshops, craft talks—featuring acclaimed poets and writers: Bei Dao, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Mark Doty, David James Duncan, Jack Gilbert, Yusef Komunyakaa, Denise Levertov, Louis Simpson, James Tate, C.K. Williams, and hundreds more. Former Center staff, faculty, and students discuss the impact.
F268. Living Liminal: Multiracial Women Writers in American Poetics .
Mary Leauna Christensen, Eman Hassan, Yaddyra Peralta, Celeste Chan, Addie Tsai
D 133-134 Convention Center, Level 1
Join five women poets from diverse cultural, regional, and academic backgrounds as they share their artistic work, as well as their thoughts on the liminal spaces related to mixed-racial identity. Discussion topics include: culture and race in writing and the use of folklore, feelings of “otherness,” feminism, genre hybridity, and the place and importance of WOC in the American poetry scene
F282B. Poetry, Belles-Lettres, and Other Correspondence: A Tribute to Donald Hall.
Martin Lammon, Mark Doty, Alicia Ostriker, Barbara Hamby
Oregon Ballroom 203, Convention Center Level 2
Donald Hall was one of the major poets of his generation. His poems used direct speech and resonant imagery to explore large themes—the self in nature, the nature of loss. His happy marriage to poet Jane Kenyon, who died in 1995, haunted his later work, but Hall would retain his appetite for joy. A generous editor and mentor, Hall corresponded with countless young writers. After reminiscences from the panel, as part of this celebration, the audience will be invited to share excerpts of their own personal letters from Donald Hall.
F286. Beyond Voice: Teaching the Craft of Consciousness in Poetry.
Erin Belieu, Adrian Matejka, Dana Levin, Monica Youn, Mark Bibbins
Portland Ballroom 255 Level 2
In workshops, much is made of a writer’s “voice.” But it may be more apt to think beyond this privileging of utterance and conversational tone to consider a more three-dimensional idea of how we shape a distinct consciousness on the page. In this panel, we discuss strategies for encouraging students to think beyond voice, offering ideas on how intellectual engagement, conceptual structures, poetic form, and the tensions of argument and rhetoric help build a fuller sense of a poem’s speaker.
4:30 to 5:15 p.m.
F290. I Keep My Eyes Open and Have to See: The Poetry of Laura Jensen.
Molly Spencer, Marianne Boruch, Kevin Prufer, Miguel Murphy, Sharon Bryan
A105 Convention Center Level 1
“I keep my eyes open and have to see / if something is terribly wrong here,” writes Laura Jensen in “The Creature from the Black Lagoon.” Jensen’s plain-spoken, psychologically dense poetry is a poetry of perception, liminality, wonder, terror, dailiness, unpredictability, surrealism, and interiors literal and figurative. Join five poets as they discuss the singularity of Jensen’s voice, her place in the poetry of the late 20th century, and why her work deserves a wider audience today.
F293. Against Witness: Developing Accountability & Participation in Poetry.
Cynthia Dewi Oka,Julia Bouwsma, Sara Borjas, Mia Malhotra, F. Douglas Brown
B110-112 Convention Center, Level 1
Definitions of “poetry of witness” are shifting as poets seek to defy the inherent passivity of the term “witness.” Increasingly, poets are interrogating the safety afforded by time and distance, engaging legacies of trauma, including those they have inherited or been proxy to, in order to confront the past and their own participation. Four poets discuss and confront the methods we use to bridge the selectivity and compartmentalization of human memory in poetry. To “witness” is no longer enough.
| Join us for our annual MFA Program for Writers reception for alumni, faculty, and current students atThe Doug Fir Lounge830 E. Burnside, Portland Friday from 8 p.m. to midnight in the South Bar/Patio Prospective students of color and prospective LGBTQIA students are invited to join us from 8 to 9 pm.! Light refreshments ~ Cash bar |
| Saturday, March 30 |
9:00 to 10:15 am
S114. You’ve Got This: Finding & Sustaining Self-Reliance While Writing A Novel.
Vu Tran, Brandon Taylor, Julia Fierro, Lan Samantha Chang, Gabriel Packard
A104 Convention Center, Level 1
Twyla Tharp said “Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity. Self-reliance is a happy by-product.” The novelist is on her/his own, in the dark searching for the proverbial light switch, not always able to rely on workshop feedback where some MFA programs encourage writers to submit short fiction only. Published authors and teachers of novel writing discuss how to maintain motivation until the light goes on, and give advice on every stage of writing a novel, from first drafts to publication.
10:30 to 11: 45 am
| S167. Creative Freedom: Writing in US Prisons. (Mike Puican, Ann Stanford, Michael Fischer, Eric Boyd) These presentations look into the benefits and challenges of creative writing in the US prison system. The panel of formerly incarcerated writers and creative writing instructors will focus on the development of the imagination and its expression as a counterbalance to the dehumanizing experience of incarceration. Each will discuss their own experiences and the role that creative writing has had on lives both inside and outside the prison system. |
F 149 Oregon Convention Center
12:00 to 1:15 pm
S200. Punk Rock Presses: rinky dink, Forklift Ohio, Cardboard House, The Wax Paper.
Rosemarie Dombrowski, Giancarlo Huapaya, Hans Hetrick, Shawnte Orion, Matt Hart
E146 Convention Center, Level 1
Punk is a style of music, a state of mind, and a subculture of the small press world. Though punk is often perceived as nothing more than an anti-establishment posture, a punk ideology espouses a DIY ethos, is nonconformist in its productions, and resists selling out under pressure. These four presses define what it means to be punk publishers, and they’re thriving in a world of better-funded, perfect-bound counterparts—and wondering how long before the raw becomes the cooked!
1:30 to 2:15 p.m.
S221. Teaching Outside the Academy: The Case for Writers’ Centers & Conferences.
Jennifer Franklin, Martha Rhodes, Tree Swenson, Chris Campanioni, Fred Marchant
C124 Convention Center, Level 1
Earning an MFA is a wonderful opportunity but not everyone has the resources and/or time to follow this route to becoming a published writer. Hear from leaders in the field as they offer the benefits and challenges of teaching and learning outside the Academy. Join the directors of two of the oldest writers centers in the country, teachers from two of the most established manuscript review and poetry conferences, and writing instructors as they discuss experiences within and outside of academia.
S260. Reimagining Tragedy: What Happened Here?.
3:00 – 4:15 pm
Kathryn Schwille, Nan Cuba, Adrianne Harun,Sunil Yapa, Claudia Salazar
D136 Convention Center Level 1
Whether murders, street battles, or space disasters, public tragedies are literary sparks. Five fiction writers consider the opportunities and challenges of writing about grim public events. We discuss strategies for dealing imaginatively with true—sometimes violent—events, navigating the wobbly line between fact and fiction, and the possibility for literature to question official histories and represent marginalized experiences.
S263. Shame as a Driver of Marginalized Female Narrative Unreliability.
Candace Walsh,Ariel Gore, Ana Menéndez
E141-142 Convention Center, Level 1
When writing intersectionally marginalized female characters, how do we acknowledge their society-inflicted shame-driven narrative unreliability? Novelists Ana Menéndez and Ariel Gore share how they’ve used craft elements to do so. Moderator Candace Walsh also presents examples from Zadie Smith’s “Crazy They Call Me” and Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties. Learn how to use shame to write rich characters and to reveal subtle truths that would otherwise go untold.
S272. The Art of the Interview.
Rachel Zucker , Franny Choi, Danez Smith, Kaveh Akbar, Rebecca Hoogs
Oregon Ballroom 201-202 Convention Center, Level 1
This panel will explore the various manifestations, roles, connections, complications, and utilities of the interview within current literary communities. Panelists have conducted interviews in a variety of formats, including written, live, and online. They will share some of the ethical, logistical and personal challenges they have encountered—and each of us encounters—when trying to guide meaningful conversations around the personal, the political, and the poetic.
4:30 to 5: 15 p.m.
S281. Adopted Korean Women Writers: History Shapes Our Writing Journey.
Leah Silvieus, Julayne Lee, SooJin Pate, Tiana Nobile, Kim Sunee
A107-109 Convention Center, Level 1
Overseas adopted Korean American women will read their poetry, memoirs, and essays that document their collective experiences. With adoption from South Korea linked to the rights of unwed mothers and also foreign policy including North Korea relations, adopted Korean writers contribute important documentation and discourse to shift the narrative and dialogue and bring attention to the history and current conditions surrounding inter-country adoption from South Korea.
S282. See Visions, Dream Dreams, Prophecy & Speak Parables: The Visionary Challenge
Nick Flynn, Jenny Xie, Mark Conway, Nicole Sealey, Alicia Jo Rabins(
B110-112 Convention Center, Level 1
William Blake’s ecstatic invitation to access the most singular aspects of our interior lives is obviously a daunting challenge, particularly in a world where these types of knowing are discounted or ignored. Five writers reflect on the difficulties of responding to Blake’s call by reading recent work that attempts to bring half-glimpsed worlds into view, envisions new parables, braids image and text together, all as means of gaining entrance into these visionary modes of imagining the world.
S284. Modes of Storytelling in Poetry.
Doug Ramspeck, Annie Kim,Laurel Blossom, David Baker, M’Bilia Meekers
B114 Convention Center Level 1
Poets, like novelists and short fiction writers, are storytellers. But because poetry is generally a short form, the storytelling elements are often subtle and unconventional. Panelists will explore storytelling methodologies in poetry that include braided stories, implied stories, and fragmented stories. Some attention will be paid to narrative theory, but the primary focus will be practical. How do poets utilize storytelling devices, and how might narrative elements connect to lyric poetry?
S285. The Word on the Street: How to Start & Run a Community Literary Series.
Naomi Williams, Peg Alford Pursell,Sue Staats, Catherine LaSota, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
B115 Convention Center, Level 1
Do you run—or want to start—a reading series in your community? Most literary events are hosted by bookstores, colleges, libraries, festivals, etc. But it’s possible to host your own series outside the umbrella of a larger existing organization. Our panelists direct thriving independent literary series. From managing venues, fundraising, and publicity, to luring big-name writers to town, we’ll discuss the nuts-and-bolts of founding, running, and sustaining small community literary events.
S289. The Gothic Pastoral: Poems from a Wrecked Eden.
Diane Seuss, Jane Huffman, Anne Cecelia Holmes, Adrian Blevins(
C124 Convention Center, Level 1
In keeping with Plath’s notion that “perfection is terrible,” Eden is at its most dynamic when it is punctured. The true pastoral is a stagnant ideal which comes alive when infiltrated with the mystery and the perversity of the gothic. Four women read poems that arise from this intersection, contextualizing landscape within a writing tradition that is increasingly obsessed with technology. Incorrigible speakers emerge from deteriorating, overlooked spaces where poetry is a dirty word.
S291. In Over Your Head: The Undergraduate Workshop.
Michael Croley, Laura van den Berg, Joanna Klink, Alexander Chee, Anne Valente
D131-132 Convention Center, Level 1
Undergraduate workshops often don’t just pose a problem for students whose aim exceeds their emotional reach and experience; they present challenges to teachers as well. Five professors focus on navigating difficult material—writing that is potentially triggering to other students, for example, or charged personal stories from which students have little distance—and show a variety of approaches, questions, and tools for how fraught material can be handled with grace and care.
S296. A Lewis & Clark College Poetry Reading.
Rosalie Moffett, Mary Szybist, Jerry Harp, Heather Napualani Hodges, Corey Van Landingham
D139-140 Convention Center, Level 1
This reading is comprised of poets in various stages of their careers who have taught and studied at Lew
is & Clark College in the last decade. Representing diverse aesthetic approaches, poets will read from their own creative work.
6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
S315. Salmon Poetry Reception to Celebrate Our Irish & American Spring Titles.
Alaska Room, Portland Double Tree, Level 1
Celebrating Jeffrey Levine, Lea Graham, Susan M. DuMars, JP Dancing Bear, Bertha Rogers, Ethna McKiernan ,Stephen Powers, John Morgan, Richard Peabody, Alice Pettway, Carolyn Tipton, Jean Kavanagh, David Rigsbee, Paulann Petersen, Patrick Chapman, Paul Casey, Katherine Kirkpatrick, and Sandy Yanonne.
