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Warren County Cultural & Heritage Commission8 Belvidere Avenue Oxford, NJ 07863 |
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Warren County Cultural & Heritage Commission8 Belvidere Avenue Oxford, NJ 07863 |
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2013 EVENT
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8th Biennial Warren County Poetry Festival Saturday, September 28, 2013 -- 10:30 AM – 7:30 PM Armstrong-Hipkins Center for the Arts at Blair Academy, Blairstown, NJ Blues Poetics: Working-Class Roots and Rhythms in Poetry
POETS’ BIOGRAPHIES
JAMES ARTHUR: Arthur’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Poetry, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review. He has received the Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Scholarship, a Stegner Fellowship, a Discovery/The Nation Prize, and a residency at the Amy Clampitt House. James is an Assistant Professor in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. His first book, Charms Against Lightning, is available through Copper Canyon Press. ROGER BONAIR-AGARD: Dubbed by Thomas Lux as "a poet of blue lightning and white hot passions", Bonair-Agard is a veteran of the spoken-word scene and a two-time National Poetry Slam Champion. The author of Tarnish and Masquerade (Rattapallax, 2007) and co-author of Burning Down the House (Soft Skull Press, 2000), his most recent book of poems is GULLY (Cypher Books, 2010). Roger moved to the United States from his native Trinidad and Tobago in 1987 and found himself exploring the seediest sides of New York City life. From Harlem to Brooklyn to Washington Heights, his poems explore the intersection between his twenty plus years as an immigrant in America and Trinidad. LAURA BOSS: Founder and editor of Lips, she was the sole representative of the USA in 1987 at the XXVI Annual Struga International Poetry Readings in Europe. Awards for her poetry include three Poetry Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her seven books of poems include the ALTA award winning Hudson (CCC), Arms: New and Selected Poems (Guernica Editions) and Flashlight (Guernica). Her poems have appeared in The New York Times. She grew up in the blue collar towns of Perth Amboy and Woodbridge surrounded by oil refineries.
MARTIN JUDE FARAWELL: His poems have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies and in the chapbook, Genesis. His plays have been performed off-off-Broadway. A graduate of New York University’s Creative Writing Program and recipient of a NJSCA Fellowship, Martin Farawell directs the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Program. NICK FLYNN: Flynn’s most recent publications include The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands (2011) and The Ticking is the Bomb (2010). Nick’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and has been translated into 14 languages. He received fellowships from The Guggenheim Foundation, and Library of Congress for Some Ether (2000), and Blind Huber (2002). His writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, National Public Radio’s This American Life, and The New York Times Book Review. Currently a creative writing professor at the University of Houston, he spends most of the year in Brooklyn. MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN: Winner of the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award and the American Book Award, Mazziotti Gillan is Founder/Director of the Poetry Center at PCCC in Paterson, NJ and Editor of PLR. Professor/Director of Creative Writing at Binghamton University-SUNY, she has published fifteen books of poetry, including The Weather of Old Seasons, Italian Women in Black Dresses, All That Lies Between Us, and What We Pass On: Collected Poems 1980-2009 (all by Guernica Editions). Her latest poetry collection is The Place I Call Home (2012, New York Quarterly Press). JIM HABA: Poetry Director of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation (1986 – 2008) he created and developed its Poetry Festival and its extensive Poetry in the Schools Program. Developer and contributor to several NPR and PBS programs including several PBS series with Bill Moyers, in 1995 he edited best-selling book The Language of Life, which accompanied 14 hours of nationally broadcast PBS programs. In 2000 Poets House awarded him The Elizabeth Kray Award and in 2011 he received the Paterson Literary Review Award for lifetime literature service. He was awarded a New Poets of the Delaware Valley prize in 1984, an NJSCA Poetry Fellowship in 1985, and in 2006 published two chapbooks: Thirty-One Poems and Love Poems. JOY HARJO: A member of the Muscogee Creek Tribe, Harjo earned her MFA from the University of Iowa and has published numerous books including She Had Some Horses (1983), Secrets from the Center of the World (1989), In Mad Love and War (1990), The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1994), How We Became Human (2003) and her memoir, Crazy Brave (2012). Her poetry has won the American Book Award, William Carlos Williams Award, American Indian Distinguished Achievement Award, New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, two NEA Creative Writing Fellowships and an honorary doctorate from Benedictine College. Her band, Poetic Justice, won the 1996-97 Musical Artist of the Year Award from Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. LESLIE HEYWOOD: Professor of English and Creative Writing at SUNY-Binghamton. She won a 2009 Chancellor’s Award and has been published in Prairie Schooner, The Connecticut Review, Paterson Literary Review, Paddlefish, Louisiana Literature, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and Caduceus. Her poems “Telescope” and “Don’t Eat the Tuna” were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has an MFA from the University of Arizona, and published three poetry collections; The Proving Grounds (Red Hen Press), Natural Selection (Louisiana Literature Press), and Lost Arts (Louisiana Literature Press). JOE WEIL: Poet/essayist and piano player who currently is a lecturer in the Creative Writing Program at SUNY Binghamton. Weil is the poetry editor for the online journal, Ragtime, and is the author of three chapbooks and three full length books of poetry, the most recent of which is The Plumber’s Apprentice (New York Quarterly Books). Weil grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey and was described by The New York Times as: “working-class, irreverent, modest, but open to the world and filled with a wealth of possibilities.”
8th Biennial Warren County Poetry Festival Saturday, September 28, 2013 -- 10:30 AM – 7:30 PM
Armstrong-Hipkins Center for the Arts at Blair Academy, Blairstown, NJ
Blues Poetics: Working-Class Roots and Rhythms in Poetry Jared Harel, Artistic Director
FEATURING Roger Bonair-Agard, Martin Farawell, Nick Flynn, Jim Haba, Joy Harjo, James Arthur, Laura Boss, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Leslie Heywood, Joe Weil
Schedule of Events
10:30-11:30 Workshops (Various sites within Armstrong-Hipkins Center for the Arts)
James Arthur: Working with Rhythm and Rhyme
Laura Boss: Writing Under a Metaphorical Microscope
Leslie Heywood: Neuropoetics: Taking Poetry Back to Its Affective Roots
Martin Jude Farawell: If I Could Talk Poetry
11:40-12:45 Reading #1 – DuBois Theater Laura Boss, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Leslie Heywood, Joe Weil
1:00-2:10 Book Signings, Lunch, Open Mics: Wean Theater, Music Studio, Patio
2:15-3:30 Reading #2 – DuBois Theater - James Arthur, Martin Farawell, Jim Haba Sampler Readings: Roger Bonair-Agard, Nick Flynn, Joy Harjo
3:45-5:00 Panel – ‘Blues Poetics: Working Class Roots & Rhythms in Poetry’ DuBois Theater - Moderator: Jim Haba; Panelists: Roger Bonair-Agard, Nick Flynn, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Joy Harjo, Joe Weil
5:15-6:00 Sampler Readings: James Arthur, Laura Boss, Martin Farawell, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Jim Haba, Leslie Heywood, Joe Weil
6:10-7:25 Featured Readings: 6:15-6:35 Roger Bonair-Agard 6:40-7:00 Nick Flynn 7:05-7:25 Joy Harjo
7:30 Open Mics
8th Biennial Warren County Poetry Festival Saturday, September 28, 2013 -- 10:30 AM – 7:30 PM Armstrong-Hipkins Center for the Arts at Blair Academy, Blairstown, NJ
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS
JAMES ARTHUR: Working with Rhythm and Rhyme In this class, we’ll explore the poetic techniques that move poetry closest to song. Whether an experienced poet or a beginner, you’ll learn practical, enjoyable strategies for working with rhythm, repetition, and rhyme to create poems of genuine beauty. The main emphasis will be on creating new work. Be ready for fearless experimentation, and plan to emerge from the class with drafts for several poems LAURA BOSS: Writing Class Under a Metaphorical Microscope Specificity is universal. It is through specific, concrete and vivid details that we are able to empathize; the college sophomore with a Bosnian refugee, the investment banker with the coal miner, a young woman with an elderly man, and so on. The right significant details have the power to bridge lives and bond societal, racial and even temporal divides. This workshop’s focus is on capturing those very details that trigger memories and explore the lives of the working class – the sales clerks and waitresses, dishwashers and mechanics. Furthermore, we will investigate how the information age has changed the landscape of what we consider ‘blue-collar employment’, and how technology has influenced the lives of these workers and our own. MARTIN JUDE FARAWELL: If I Could Talk PoetryT. S. Eliot wrote “Contemporary poetry should be such that the listener or reader can say, ‘That is how I should talk if I could talk poetry.’” When faced with the speech we hear around us and the speech of poetry, many of us may wonder if “talking poetry” requires abandoning how we talk. In this session, we’ll “talk poetry” with the rhythms, word choices, metaphors, images and music that makes our common speech naturally poetic. LESLIE HEYWOOD: Neuropoetics: Taking Poetry Back
to Its Affective Roots
The 8th Biennial Warren County Poetry Festival is made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Poetry Festival do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. This program is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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