Public Event Schedule
9:30 AM
Ransom Fellowship Hall
Kevin McIlvoy: DESINENCE
In this lecture I will concentrate upon the work of Henry David Thoreau, specifically the journal in which he uniquely accomplishes his poetic expression and his natural storytelling. Thoreau’s literary contributions, which defy categorization into genres, mark all of American literature that reckons with the tragic and comic moments in which one attempts to reconcile spiritual and savage impulses, the paradoxes when one attempts to “let his mind descend into his body.” While reflecting upon Thoreau’s generative journal-keeping methods and his storytelling and poetry, I will specifically comment on what his work teaches us about the writer’s approaches to desinence, the coming-to-an-end moment. This is an “answering” lecture to my long-ago lecture on “imminence” (the about-to-be moment).
To prepare for this lecture, saunter.

10:45 AM
Ransom Fellowship Hall
Alan Shapiro: On Convention and Self-Expression
Convention and self-expression are often thought of as mutually exclusive or at least antagonistically related. In this lecture I hope to show how impersonal conventions and personality are or can be not only mutually entailing, not mutually exclusive, but that the very notion of self is inconceivable apart of the impersonal means by which self is expressed. Along the way we’ll look at poems by Philip Larkin, Ben Jonson, J.V. Cunningham, Dan Pagis and Natalie Diaz.

Then join us at 8:15pm in Ransom Fellowship Hall for a reading featuring graduating students:
Anu Bharadwaj
Noah Friedman
Leslie Koffler
Lesley Valdes
Catherine Meeks
For more information, including a full schedule of public events, please visit the program website at http://wwcmfa.org/.

Public Event Schedule

Join us at 8:15pm in Ransom Fellowship Hall for a reading featuring faculty members:
Debra Allbery
David Haynes
James Longenbach
Kevin McIlvoy
For more information, including a full schedule of public events, please visit the program website at http://wwcmfa.org/.

Public Event Schedule
9:30 AM
Ransom Fellowship Hall
Debra Spark: Jump Already
I am interested in looking at moments in artists’ lives when they move significantly forward, when they realize that, for whatever reason, the old way of doing things or thinking about things is not working, and they need to try something else. I’m interested in dead ends that are opportunities in disguise, failures that are, in hindsight, the necessary step to a new way of creating. To this end, I want to look at artistic leaps, particularly ones that bring students out of their apprenticeships and into their full creative selves and more seasoned writers through and beyond their talents to their most distinctive, original work. The focus will be on the material and craft “a-has!” that occasion development. I’ll be considering the work of Rick Russo, Joan Silber, Steve Stern, and Joan Wickersham, as well as a few painters. No reading required.
10:45 AM
Ransom Fellowship Hall
Rodney Jones: Overriding the Autobiographical First-Person Default: Writing Poetry in Fictional Points-of-View
This lecture will discuss the predominant use of autobiographical first-person point-of-view by contemporary poets as an outgrowth of both the Romantic poetic sensibility and of the contemporary workshop, discuss the difficulties of overriding that model, and argue for the advantages of using points-of-view usually associated with fiction. It will feature close readings of several pertinent texts, including selections from Ann Carson’s The Beauty of the Husband, Ellen Bryant Voigt’s Kyrie, and Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid.

Then join us at 8:15pm in Gladfelter, Cannon Lounge for a reading featuring faculty members:
Brooks Haxton
Caitlin Horrocks
C. Dale Young
Peter Turchi
For more information, including a full schedule of public events, please visit the program website at http://wwcmfa.org/.

Public Event Schedule

Join us at 8:15pm in Ransom Fellowship Hall for a reading featuring faculty members:
Samantha Chang
Alan Shapiro
Lauren Groff
Monica Youn
For more information, including a full schedule of public events, please visit the program website at http://wwcmfa.org/.

AWP Minneapolis kicks off today and we want you to join us!

The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College invites its students, graduates, and faculty to stop by the Program’s Bookfair table (#651), to attend the more than 50 panels featuring our own (see the revised and updated schedule and descriptions attached below!), and to attend our annual party, which will be held from 9 to midnight at the Burnet Art Gallery in the Le Meridien Chambers Minneapolis, 901 Hennepin Avenue. There will be light refreshments and a cash bar.

We’ll also be hosting a pre-reception event in the same space from 7:30 to 8:30–an informational gathering for prospective students of color. So if you know writers of color who are contemplating applying to MFA programs, please encourage them to attend–or accompany them!–to this event.

We look forward to seeing you this weekend!

AWP Schedule 2015

AWP 2015 At-A-Glance