This Wednesday, August 31, the Holler poets will be celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Affrilachian Poets with a selection of poets curated by Frank X Walker and the musical stylings of DeBraun Thomas.
| When: | Wednesday, August 31, 2016 @ 8pm |
| Where: | Al’s Bar |
| 601 N Limestone | |
| Lexington, KY 40508 | |
| (859) 309-2901 |
Pat Owen and Audrey Rooney will both read from their debut books at the Wild Fig on Saturday, August 20, 2016.
Pat Owen’s Crossing the Sky Bridge (Larkspur Press) is a poetry collection about love, loss, family, and the natural world. Owen started writing as a way to deal with the illness and eventual death of her partner of 30 years, Ellen Bourke Ewing. The book was recently recommended in the Courier-Journal by Jayne Moore Waldrop.
Audrey Rooney’s Fountains for Orpheus is Accents Publishing’s newest poetry collection. Covering such topics as love, loss, and the natural world, Audrey’s shares some similarities to Pat Owen’s. However, Orpheus also contains several translations of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus along with responses by the author.
For more information, click here to see the Facebook Event page.
| When: | Thursday, August 20, 2016 @ 2:30pm |
| Where: | Wild Fig Books + Coffee |
| 726 N Limestone | |
| Lexington, KY 40508 | |
| (859) 252-3052 |
We invite you to attend the world premiere of Audrey Rooney‘s Fountains for Orpheus at the Carnegie Center in Lexington, Kentucky.
In Fountains of Orpheus, Audrey Rooney explores timeless concepts from love and loss to aging and nature. This book contains poems of diverse shapes, forms and sizes, as well as several translations of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus, matched with Audrey’s poignant responses to Rilke’s work.
Audrey will read from and copies of Fountains for Orpheus will be available from Accents Publishing.
Click here to see the Facebook event page
| When: | Thursday, August 18, 2016 @ 5pm |
| Where: | Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning |
| 251 W. Second St. | |
| Lexington, KY 40507 | |
| (859) 254-4175 |
The 98th monthly Holler Poets Series will feature poets Drew Pomeroy and Randi Ward as well as musical guests The Local Honeys.
Drew Pomeroy is an alumnus of Spalding University’s MFA in Creative Writing as well as a 2014 nominee for the Pushcart Prize. Pomeroy is the Poetry Editor for Winter Tangerine Review and lives in Louisville.
This will be Randi Ward’s Holler debut. Ward has spent a lot of time in Scandinavia with an MA in Cultural Studies at the University of the Faroe Islands and has ties to Norway and Iceland. Her newest book, Whipstitches, is available from MadHat Press.
The Local Honeys will also be celebrating their debut with the album Little Girls Actin’ Like Men. The Local Honeys is composed of Montana Hobbs and Linda Jean Stokley.
For more information, visit the Facebook Event page.
| When: | Wednesday, July 27, 2016 @ 8pm |
| Where: | Al’s Bar |
| 601 N Limestone | |
| Lexington, KY 40508 | |
| (859) 309-2901 |
Jay McCoy, author of The Occupation (Accents Publishing), will be one of the featured speakers at tonight’s Kentucky Great Writers event along with Jason Howard and Gwyn Human Rubio.
The poems of The Occupation deal with homosexual relationships and the threat of HIV. Jay McCoy instructs the class “Writing for Recovery” at the NAMI Participation Station in Lexington, Kentucky. He is a Lexington-based poet and visual artist with deep roots in Eastern Kentucky as well as the general manager for the Morris book shop and co-founder of the Teen Howl Poetry Series.
Jason Howard‘s writings have spanned the careers of such musicians as Carly Simon, Dwight Yoakam, Ricky Skaggs, Jim James, and Jean Ritchie. A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music (University Press of Kentucky) explores the many genres in which Kentucky musicians have helped contribute, from folk and jazz to hip hop and gospel.
Because Gwyn Hyman Rubio‘s father, a writer, had a fatal heart attack at 39, she stayed away from the profession as long as she could. In 1983, she realized her calling and was accepted into the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College. Her writing tends to explore human relationships, especially those of children and parets. Love and Ordinary Creatures (Ashland Creek Press) is from the perspective of a cockatoo and explores the bird’s relationship with his caretaker.
Open mic sign-ups start at 6:30pm with readings at 7. Featured guests begin at 7:30.
Visit the Facebook Event page for more info.
| When: | Tuesday, May 24, 2016 @ 7PM |
| Where: | The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning |
| 251 W. Second Street | |
| Lexington, KY 40507 | |
| (859) 254-4175 |
Dear Lexington poets,
The signups for the Lexington Poetry Month 2016 Writing Challenge are currently open!
Please click here to sign up. If you signed up last year, then you will have the option to send yourself an email to register for this year.
Also, everyone is invited to our release party for & Grace: selections from Lexington Poetry Month 2015, which will be tonight at the Carnegie Center in Lexington, Kentucky next to Gratz Park. (If you will need parking, you may come early and get a pass from the front desk to park at a neighboring Transylvania lot).
If you are coming to the event and you participated in last year’s event, then you are invited to come and read your piece in front of a live audience. Refreshments will be served.
We hope you join us for this year’s challenge, and please come celebrate with us tonight!
Peter Fallon will be reading as part of UK’s Visiting Writers Series. Fallon serves on the Poetry Ireland Board. In 1970, he founded The Gallery Press and has edited and published over four hundred books of Irish poetry and plays.
His newest collection of poems, Strong, My Love is a “series of prayers” for his, son, daughter, and their generation. According to Wendell Berry, Fallon “writes with an acute particularity of eye and ear, recording ordinary events made extraordinary by the amplitude of his care and the precision of his notice” (source).
For more information, visit the UK Visiting Writers Series page or the Facebook Event page.
Wednesday, April 13, 20
7pm-8pm @ William T. Young Library
401 Hilltop Ave
Lexington, KY 40508
As part of their regular KY Great Writers Series, the Carnegie Center will be presenting readings by Rebecca Gayle Howell, Kiki Petrosino, and Nickole Brown. Continue reading
Tonight’s Holler Poets Series will feature Affrilachian Poet Crystal Wilkinson, Accents Publishing’s own Christopher McCurry, and the musical stylings of Nicholas Penn.
Click here for the Facebook Event page.
Crystal Wilkinson’s The Birds of Opulence is currently available from University Press of Kentucky. It tells the story of the Goode-Brown family, particularly matriarch Minnie Mae, as they deal with mental illness and illegitimacy. Kate Weiss of Leo Weekly calls The Birds of Opulence “swift and beautiful”.
Christopher McCurry’s Nearly Perfect Photograph (Two of Cups Press) is a collection of marriage sonnets that will quickly resonate with any husband or wife. In an interview with Nettie Farris for New Southerner, Christopher says that he chose the sonnet because “Sonnets are supposed to put ideas, emotions, concepts, in conflict with one another” (source). The collection is all about the different kinds of conflict in a marriage-like relationship.
Nicholas Penn is a Lexington musician known for acoustic guitar and singing melancholy, but emotionally-charged, original songs. He has performed at various gatherings, recently performing at the Lexington Art League’s “Artist: Body” exhibit on March 25th. You can see one of his performances in the video below.
| When: | Wednesday, March 30, 2016 @ 8pm |
| Where: | Al’s Bar |
| 601 N Limestone | |
| Lexington, KY 40508 | |
| (859) 309-2901 |
In Lexington, the Spalding MFA Program will be having a reading at Wild Fig Books Coffee with students and alums. The event will be hosted by Savannah Sipple and the readers include:
| When: | Friday, March 25, 2016 @ 7pm |
| Where: | Wild Fig Books & Coffee |
| 726 N. Limestone | |
| Lexington, KY 40508 | |
| (859) 252-3052 |
In Louisville, Dave Harrity will be celebrating the release of his book, Our Father in the Year of the Wolf (WordFarm, 2016), at Highland Morning. The celebration is titled “Breakfast-for-Dinner Book Release Celebration!”. There will also be appearances by several readers, two of which will be very familiar to the Accents audience. Readers include:
| When: | Thursday, March 25, 2016 @ 6:30pm |
| Where: | Highland Morning |
| 1416 Bardstown Rd | |
| Lo9uisville, KY 40204 | |
| (502) 365-3900 |