Thursday’s Teen Howl will feature a reading from Isaac Batts. The reading will begin at 6pm at the Morris book shop in Lexington, Kentucky.
Open mic sign-ups begin at 5:45pm.
| When: | Thursday, September 8, 2016 @ 6pm |
| Where: | the Morris book shop |
| 882 E. High St. | |
| Lexington, KY 40508 | |
| (859) 276-0494 |
“If you don’t tell your own story, then someone else will,” says Frank X Walker in a video released by Creative Lexington earlier this year.
Walker also explains the origins of the “X” in “Frank X Walker”:
But it’s not an abbreviation for ‘Xylophone’ or ‘Xavier’. It’s just ‘X’, as in the unknown, like in mathematics.
He then goes into a brief genesis of the term “Affrilachia”, which deals with his dictionary defining “appalachian” as a “white person from Appalachia”.
Creative Lexington’s mission is to share stores about Lexington, Kentucky. Their “Snapshot Bios” are 3-5 minute videos designed to “celebrate the vibrant creative scene and sense of community in Lexington” (source). The video was produced by Bryan Mullins and Filmed/Edited by John Buckman with music by Matt Mason.
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 |
Curtis L. Crisler, author of Black Achilles (Accents Publishing), spoke to Liz Whiteacre’s class at the University of Indianapolis about “personification” and “persona” in poetry, and he reads several poems from Black Achilles. He describes “persona” as “where the voice of the narrator comes from”. In one poem, he personifies “inconvenience”. The other poems identify the actual narrator of the book, Black Achilles, and are viewed through his perspective.
According to Leslie Anne McIlroy, Black Achilles explores “our love affair with convenience, our ever-growing cloak of invulnerability, our pining for youth, immortality—how we unhinge at its loss.” Black Achilles is currently available from Accents Publishing.
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 |
Through the poems in this brilliant debut collection, 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.
Accents will be hosting a premiere for Fountains for Orpheus at the Carnegie Center in Lexington, Kentucky on August 18th. Details available here.
Fountains for Orpheus is available at the Accents store.
In Fountains for Orpheus, Audrey Rooney invites us to bring our artist eyes to the beauty-filled and bewildering scenes of her well-lived life. “Come, Gardener,” she writes, and we are introduced to a world of violet skies, river deaths, and small talk. She’s a keen writer, wise and intelligent. Emotionally, she never strays far from her music or her man. Congratulations to Audrey for this delightful debut collection!
—Neil Chethik
Audrey Rooney’s painterly poems reveal our ordinary world for the fresh miracle it is—charged and shining in the carnelian flash of flagstones, in the tulip poplar’s “egg-cup” blooms, green as luna moths. Lovely as their images are, however, these poems are no mere surfaces. In Fountains for Orpheus, Rooney’s poems pursue loss, change, and imperfection—hers, ours. Often quirky, never somber (though they circle death) these poems reward reading and rereading. They probe the uncertain edges where winter passes into spring, where death invades life and “creatures given to our care make no promises not to break our hearts one day.” What are the dead to the living or the living to the dead? Rooney asks, as Rilke did. And as Rilke’s did, Audrey Rooney’s poems find a way to “love the in-betweens.”
—Leatha Kendrick
Meticulously observed and elegantly composed, Rooney’s poems celebrate and mourn the beauty of nature, the transcendence of art, and the death of the beloved. They write back to Rilke, examine a childhood relic from her lost brother, embrace grandchildren, and everywhere render the music of this world with learning and longing. Fountains for Orpheus is a volume to savor.
—George Ella Lyon
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 |
Christopher McCurry: I just picked up your beautiful new book, Mother May I (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016) from The Wild Fig. How did it feel to hold your debut collection in your hands?
Tina Parker: Thank you so much for supporting my work in buying my book! To hold my debut collection in my hands? In many ways, I still can’t believe I have. It feels surreal and gratifying, and I am filled with gratitude.
It’s my pleasure! What I’ve read so far I really like. Kind of an off-the-wall question here, but most of my favorite books of poetry are from local authors, is that true for you? And if so, do you think every city/state with a thriving writing community feels the same about their immediate and living writers, or are we just lucky?
We are so lucky in Kentucky! I often wonder if it’s true in other places, or perhaps our state just has the perfect mix of talent and opportunities for emerging writers to interact with those established Kentucky authors. I’ve had the chance to take workshops with and/or be mentored by some of my favorite poets: James Baker Hall, George Ella Lyon, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Leatha Kendrick, Bianca Spriggs, and Rebecca Howell. I am incredibly grateful to them, and to the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and Wild Fig Coffee and Books for providing the venues for my learning. Continue reading
Christopher McCurry: You’ve got two new books out, Our Father in the Year of the Wolf (WordFarm, 2016) and These Intricacies (Wipf and Stock, 2015), what’s it like honoring and promoting each work? Because, honestly, I’m imagining having two newborn babies needing your undivided attention.
Dave Harrity: Oddly enough, this is a pattern in my life—my wife and I have two kids 11 months apart. Finally found something I’m good at. Ha! In earnest, it’s been tough giving them both their fair due. The saving grace of the whole things is that the books are quite different—These Intricacies is spiritual and meditative, as well as accessible and straightforward. Our Father is another matter—it’s conceptual and more transgressive. The book is also experimental or ecstatic in some places, playing with a diversity of motifs, texts, and tropes. For me, this means I’ve got two different audiences to consider. I tend to read from one or the other based on the audience, or steer a potential reader to one or the other once I understand his or her preferences. When I go to teach a workshop, I tend to sell These Intricacies; at a literary reading, Our Father. But it’s most dependent on what the person in front of me is looking for from poetry. Continue reading