I'm delighted to announce that, after the success of our two pilot programs last fall, the Arizona National Parks will be sponsoring four more poetry workshops in April this year. These workshops are free and open to all, and no experience is necessary.
photo credit: Roy Manzanares
Why do we share poems, as opposed to other writing forms, at weddings, funerals and other significant life events? What is it about poetry that speaks to our humanity, and how does a poet create something so profoundly impactful? In this brief talk, we’ll consider one indispensable tool that, for centuries, poets have known is the key to creating powerful poetry: musicality. We’ll consider not only how musicality distinguishes poetry from other forms of writing, but also how it can heighten, enrich and transform a poem — ultimately creating something that can, as William Wordsworth says, make us “wiser, better and happier.”
I will be presenting at the Miami Book Fair on November 17th. Below is a description of the event.
In The Shallows, Stacey Lynn Brown explores complex legacies of family, race, and illness in the American South. At the core of Libby Burton’s Soft Volcano lie the marks of woe and time left upon the body after love is strained or abandoned. Jodie Hollander charts a story of familial understanding and reconciliation in My Dark Horses. Erika Meitner plumbs human resilience in the face of disaster and uncertainty, refusing to settle for easy answers in Holy Moly Carry Me.
Excerpt reprinted from the AZ Daily Sun website. Click the link to read the full write up!
Growing up in a family of classical musicians, Colorado poet Jodie Hollander says they were often compared to the Von Trapp Family Singers. Hollander wasn’t bad at music, but she didn’t quite have perfect pitch the way her brother and sister did, and after trying multiple instruments, Hollander decided music wasn’t for her. Instead, she became an observer, and a love of poetry began to develop.
Excerpt from the article reprinted from The Times Literary Supplement website:
“In the end she was never quite sure / whether it was real or she was dreaming.” Jodie Hollander’s powerful debut collection is as hypnotic and rich as a dream, taking as its epigraph Rimbaud’s assertion that “A thousand dreams within me softly burn”, and returning to the word “dream” repeatedly, balancing dreamscapes with vividly realized portraits from life. It is peopled with musicians, music-flooded, and there is a sense of a whole family history pressed into its pages. The mother is the dominant figure, present from the collection’s first poem, “Splitting and Fucking”. Here, the title words are repeated, hammered throughout the poem, echoing the simmering violence of “that last guy” who “split all kinds / of things like / the front door”. Meaning is split across the poem’s line breaks – the poem explicitly plays with form – and different senses of the title words are considered, so that the poem takes in “split / personalities”, “ear-splitting” screams, and a “split / up” relationship, before concluding with a devastating cancer diagnosis: “mutant cells / splitting and fucking / all over / her insides”.
I am settling into my beautiful writing studio at the Museum of Northern Arizona...and using the gorgeous Colorado Plateau and Ponderosa Pines for inspiration! And Im working in Mary Colton’s art studio, the woman in the painting behind me.
photo by Gabrielle Granillo
I'll be the poet in Residence for the Museum of Northern Arizona, starting September 1. This will include teaching workshops, based off the exhibitions in the museums, as well as giving readings and attending museum events all fall. I'll also have my own private studio overlooking the Colorado Plateau where I'll be writing from.
September 13: Reading at the Museum of Northern Arizona
September 23: Poetry Workshop at the Museum of Northern Arizona
I'll be presenting My Dark Horses at the Miami Book Fair, November 17 and 18.
