Conference by day, festival by night, featuring poetry readings, panels, art exhibitions, books.

Featured poets include Bruce Andrews, Rae Armantrout, Nicole Brossard, Clark Coolidge, Jayne Cortez, Ann Lauterbach, Bernadette Mayer, Tom Raworth, and Fred Wah.

For much more information, visit the NPF website.

The University of Maine English Department is pleased to announce the winners of the 2008 Clarine Coffin Grenfell Poetry Prizes, judged by poet Annie Finch, director of the Stonecoast Brief Residency Master of Fine Arts at the University of Southern Maine.

Recipients of the prizes will be recognized at the English Department’s Honors & Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, April 30, at 3:30pm in the Arthur Hill Auditorium of Barrows Hall. For more information, contact the English Department at 207-581-3822.

First Prize (free verse)
Katie Lattari for “I Break Leaves in Brittle Mornings”

First Prize (traditional form)
Crystal McArthur for “Rebirth”

Second Prizes
Megan Soderberg for “Fluency”
Jessica Putnam for “Reality”

Third Prizes
Virginia Lee Sand for “An American Indian Woman”
Cassandra Lueneburg for “My First Kiss”

BIOS & PHOTOS (alphabetical order, click photos to enlarge)

KATIE LATTARI
I was born in Brooklyn, New York, then when I was 8 years old, my family and I moved to Maine and have lived here ever since. I’m a third year English major (creative writing concentration), and I hope to pursue writing in an MFA program after undergrad. I love baseball, guitars, and shoes, and currently live in Winterport, Maine.

CASSANDRA LUENEBURG
Cassandra Lueneburg is a first year honor student at the University of Maine. She was born in New London, Connecticut in 1989 and since then has moved  around New England until finally coming to Maine. Since the third grade, writing has always been like breathing air. Instead of doing homework, she wrote stories about exotic zoo animals for pets and passed those in to her teacher for a grade instead. When the sixth grade rolled around, she was introduced to poetry and became completely enthralled by the fluidity and form of poems. Cassandra is now currently working on getting her Bachelor’s degree in  English with a concentration in Creative Writing, though she is still debating whether she wants to write fiction or poetry because she loves both fields equally. The poem which won the Grenfell award, “My First Kiss,” was actually an experimental poem she wrote in the late hours of the night when she was inspired to write something but had no idea what to write about. When she asked for ideas from a friend, he recommended to write a poem about “would you ever eat a polka dot banana?” Well this poem has nothing to do with a polka dot banana, but just the suggestion put her in the silly mind frame to write this poem.

CRYSTAL MCARTHUR
I never considered myself a writer, much less a poet, but have always found myself drawn to it regardless. I am an elementary education major with minors in Music Education and English. Poetry was something I did simply for my own benefit. It wasn’t until this year that I started sharing my poetry with others, but everyone received it so positively I decided to take a few classes to see where my writing would take me! I guess I found out.

JESSICA PUTNAM

I was born in Bangor Maine but raised in upstate New York. At the age of 15 I moved back to Maine and graduated from Bangor High School in 1999. I then attended Husson College for a semester before moving to Florida. While in Florida I attended Seminole Community College where I edited the Campus paper and eventually received my A.A. degree. Upon graduating I took some time off and hiked the east coast via the Florida and Appalachian trail systems. I am currently a single mother and full-time student at the University of Maine majoring in English with a Creative Writing concentration. My goals for the future include publication of my work and teaching at the collegiate level.

VIRGINIA SAND
I am a French Major with a Native American Studies Minor. On my mother’s side, I have both French and Mi’kmaq Indian heritage in Canada, so that is why I am focused on French and Native American Studies here at the University of Maine. I heard French spoken at home in Waterville, Maine while growing up in a Franco American community. My mother spoke fluent French, so now I have gone back to try to re-acquire my French maternal language. I am currently working on a BA in French and possibly in Native American Studies. Beyond that I plan to pursue my PhD since I already have a Masters Degree in Education.

I love books, I love writing, and I love life-long learning. What else are we here for? Since last September, I have also begun writing American Indian-themed plays with much enthusiasm and joy. Through literature, I feel that my purpose is to impart my passion for embracing diversity on the planet; embracing diversity for all cultures, all ethnicities, all species of plants and animals, and doing all that we can to preserve diversity, which is what makes the earth sing.

It pleases me immeasurably to have won a Grenfell Poetry Prize.

MEGAN SODERBERG
A native of Northern Michigan, Megan first came to UMaine as a Marine Biology major, and then sort of took a left turn. She is now a fourth year English Creative Writing major, minoring in Women’s Studies and Film and Video. After graduating she hopes to attend film school (or at least that’s the plan for now), as well as continue writing and studying literature.

Fiction writer Julia Elliott read to an audience of approximately fifty people in the penultimate event of the spring 2008 New Writing Series on 10 April 2008. The event, introduced by David Kress, was recorded on digital videotape (vhs and dvd duplicates available soon) as well as both lo- and hi-end audio (thanks to Rebecca Griffin for the latter). A full set list follows the photo gallery below. For Kyle Kernan’s write-up in the Maine Campus, click here.

PHOTOS

Julia Elliott reads her story “The Whipping”

The writer entertained questions after her reading

Julia Elliott reads the name of one of two audience members who won copies of her band’s CD

Dave Kress scours the cube: “No more questions?”

SET LIST (compiled by Katie Lattari)

* Introduction by Dave Kress
1) “The Whipping”
- originally published in the Georgia Review

Questions
1) How long did it take you to write “The Whipping”?
2) How much personal experience went into “The Whipping”?
3) Did you revise “The Whipping”?
4) Was it particularly difficult to write the prayer scenes in “The Whipping”?
5) What do you think is the most important aspect of the short story?
6) Did you place alliteration in your story on purpose?
7) Did you find it hard to get “The Whipping” published?
8] Could you tell us something about your CDs [Elliot’s band “Grey Egg“]?
9) I noticed the inclusion of incongruous tastes and smells in the story; do you include that in your writing on purpose, and continually?
10) Was there more of the Arthurian novel included in “The Whipping” originally?
11) What’s the rest of your writing like, compared with “The Whipping”?
12) What does “texture” mean to you in terms of writing?
13) What/ who do you read?

Fiction writer Julia Elliott makes her first appearance in the UMaine New Writing Series on 10 April 2008 at 4:30pm in the Soderberg Auditorium (Jenness Hall). Like all NWS events, this one is free & open to the public (though seating is limited).

JULIA ELLIOTT’s fictions have appeared in Conjunctions, Tin House, The Georgia Review, Puerto del Sol, The Mississippi Review, 3rd Bed, Fence, Black Warrior Review, and other print and online publications.

An instructor in English and Women’s Studies at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, Elliott holds a PhD in English from the University of Georgia and an MFA in English from Penn State University.

Besides appearing as one of the dramatis personae in Paul West’s teaching memoir Master Class: Scenes from a Fiction Workshop (Harcourt, 2001), Elliott’s honors and awards include being published in Best American Fantasy 2007 (Plume Books); listed in “The Hugo Awards that Weren’t”; included in StorySouth’s Million Writer’s Award, Notable Stories of 2004 (“the top online short stories of 2004”); listed as “Notable Nonrequired Reading of 2002” in Dave Eggers’ series The Best American Nonrequired Reading; and receiving the Great American Novel Award in the Virginia Festival of the Book (Virginia Foundation for the Humanities & Tupelo Press, March 2003).

The event will be introduced by Assistant Professor of Creative Writing David Kress.

*

Listen to tracks from previous NWS events on UMaine’s iTunes U.
On Facebook? You’re invited to join the NWS group.
Keep track of NWS events via LibraryThing Local.
To learn more about the National Poetry Foundation, visit the new website.
For more about the English Department, which offers Master’s Degrees in Creative Writing and Poetry & Poetics, click here.

Poets Rodney Koeneke and Benjamin Friedlander read to an audience of approximately fifty people in the New Writing Series on 4 April 2008. The event, introduced by Steve Evans, was recorded on digital videotape (vhs and dvd duplicates available soon) and, thanks to Rebecca Griffin, hi-end audio. Full set lists follow the photo gallery below.

PHOTOS

Benjamin Friedlander addressing the NWS audience

Rodney Koeneke introducing a poem

Koeneke dons his neo-Benshi garb

Koeneke and Friedlander entertaining questions from the audience

(photos by Jennifer Moxley)

SET LISTS (compiled by Katie Lattari)

Benjamin Friedlander
- “It’s a pleasure to read for the home crowd…”
- Reads works in translation, originally in either German or Italian; then proceeds to his own poems
1) The Fox, the Cook, the Cock (translation)
2) Prayer of Exhortation or Encouragement (translation)
3) To Set Your Mind at Rest (translation)
4) Afternoon with Circus and Citadel (translation)
5) Brecht (translation)
6) History lesson
7) The Social Contract
8] Urban Renewal
9) Network News
10) Dictation
11) The Mind is a Bubble Sheet
12) The Emergency Broadcasting System
13) Dedication
14) Patriot Days
15) When a Cop Sees a Black Woman
16) Biological or Social Female Parent of a Child or Offspring and Its Poetry
17) Somebody Blew Up America
18] Hillary Duff
19) Fame
20) The Chinese Written Character is a Medium for Poetry
21) Beloved
22) Eliot
23) Me and My Gang
24) Charmed
25) Drew’s Old

Friedlander’s Commentary
- The poem “Hillary Duff” as his “statement on poetics”
- “Fame” is in memory of a friend; “may be my first FLARF elegy”
- “The Chinese Written Character is a Medium for Poetry”: “for Burt and Sylvester if only they were here”
- “Charmed” is a “Birthday Poem”: “My favorite thing about FLARF is the Birthday poems”

Rodney Koeneke
epigraph for this reading, derived from the sign of the University Inn: “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face”

from Rouge State
1) #50 Summer Acrostic Hotshot
2) #39 How to Find Safe Passage
3) #21 Sweethearts of what rodeo?

from Musée Mechanique
4) Afterword
5) Use Dips to Initiate
6) Pizza Kitty
7) Chary as Gary
8] In Memory of My Feelings
9) The World is Loud
10) Europe. Memory. Squid Parts. Grace.
11) The Adorno Corollary

from “Etruria” (manuscript)
12) ben friedlander
13) Rules for Drinking 40s
14) chinoiserie
15) Etruria

Film/ poetry “neo-benshi” performance for Guru Dutt’s film Pyaasa (1957)

Koeneke’s Commentary
-On “The Adorno Corollary”: the poem is referencing Adorno’s famous statement about poetry after Auschwitz
-On “Ben Friedlander”: this is a birthday poem
-On “Etruria”: “FLARF, like soylent green, is people”

Questions
1) How do you use Google searches to help sculpt your [FLARF] poems?
2) (To Koeneke) Do you have any audio files of your poetry available anywhere?
3) For birthday poems, how/ what do you search? Is there a certain way you go about it?
4) How much FLARF do you write in comparison to non-FLARF poetry?
5) (To Koeneke): How long did it take you to write the “neo-benshi” piece?
6) (To Koeneke): Are you striving for persona-type poems?
7) Do you think writing can change things?
8] To Koeneke): You like performance—do you have any background in theatre?

Poet Thomas Sayers Ellis read to nearly a hundred people in the Hill Auditorium on 20 March 2008 in an event cosponsored by the New Writing Series and the Honors College. In his forty-minute set, Ellis read from his book The Maverick Room and from a manuscript in progress (see set list below). The poet also took questions from the audience. The event, introduced by Steve Evans, was recorded on digital videotape (vhs and dvd duplicates available soon).

PHOTOS
(from L to R) Thomas Sayers Ellis before the reading (photo credit: Christina Pappas for the Maine Campus); Ellis reading from his work (photo credit: Benjamin Friedlander); Ellis at the Oakes Room Café before his visit to Honors 180, A Cultural Odyssey (photo credit: Benjamin Friedlander). Click to enlarge.

SET LIST (compiled by Katie Lattari)
1. Audience (from the manuscript “Colored Only”)
2. All Their Stanzas Look Alike
3. Balloon Dog
4. A Pack of Cigarettes
5. Sir Nose Devoid of Funk / (Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk)?
6. My Meter is Percussive
7. Or
8. No Easy Task
9. Mr. Dynamite Splits

Questions
1) Can you compare poetry to hip hop?
2) Can you talk about the way in which you read your work (deliver/ perform your poems to an audience)?
3) What would your ideal setting for reading your work?

The UMaine New Writing Series continues this Thursday, 3 April, with a poetry reading by Rodney Koeneke and Benjamin Friedlander at 4:30pm in the Soderberg “cube” (Jenness Hall).

BENJAMIN FRIEDLANDER is the author of The Missing Occasion of Saying Yes, Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism, and Time Rations, among many other volumes. He recently edited the Selected Poems of Robert Creeley for the University of California Press. Friedlander is Associate Professor of English at the University of Maine and a member of the National Poetry Foundation editorial collective. Read more about him here.

RODNEY KOENEKE is the author of Rouge State and Musée Mechanique. His new manuscript is called “Etruria.” He lives in Portland with his wife, Lesley Poirier, and their curly-headed son, and tends a blog called Modern Americans. This will be Koeneke’s first appearance in the New Writing Series.

*

Listen to tracks from previous NWS events on UMaine’s iTunes U.
On Facebook? You’re invited to join the NWS group.
Keep track of NWS events via LibraryThing Local.
To learn more about the National Poetry Foundation, visit the new website.
For more about the English Department, which offers Master’s Degrees in Creative Writing and Poetry & Poetics, click here.

Poets Eléna Rivera and Jennifer Moxley read to a capacity audience in the Soderberg Auditorium on 20 March 2008. Both writers read from work in manuscript (set lists below). The event was recorded on digital videotape (vhs and dvd duplicates available soon), on lo-fi audio (8-bit wav) and hi-fi audio (thanks to Rebecca Griffin). Benjamin Costanzi’s recap of the event for the Maine Campus is online here.

PHOTOS

(from l-r) Eléna Rivera reading from her work; Jennifer Moxley reading from her work; Rivera (foreground) and Moxley entertaining questions from the audience. (Click to enlarge.)

See more photos on Benjamin Friedlander’s Flickr page.

SET LISTS (compiled by Katie Lattari)

Jennifer Moxley
Poetry
1. The Quest
2. You Are Not an Image (open mp3)
3. The Drip
4. The Price of Silence
5. excerpt from “Approximations”
6. excerpt from “Approximations”

Essays
“There Are Things We Live Among”
1. Lose All Companions
2. Clothes
3. Fetish
4. Secret Meaning

Eléna Rivera
1. The Reading (open mp3)
2. Gold
3. Orange
4. Silver
5. White
6. Red
7. Movement in the Upper Regions
* Poems 2-6 from a series of color poems Rivera thinks she considers a set

Questions
1. For Moxley: Between your poetry or prose, what pushes you toward one or the other when you write?
2. For both: Can you talk about the dialogue/ friendship you two share and how it impacts your work?
3. For both: Can you discuss how poetics came into your life—were there early shaping forces or was it something inherent?
4. For Elena: Do you find that writing in a space of discomfort is more fruitful than writing in your comfort zone?
5. For Elena: Did you see yourself as a socially conscious writer to begin with?
6. For both: Does translation work affect your own writing?

The New Writing Series, in proud partnership with the UMaine Honors College, is pleased to welcome poet Thomas Sayers Ellis to campus for a reading this Wednesday, 26 March, at 4:30pm in the Arthur Hill Auditorium (Barrows Hall). This event is free and open to the public, though seating is limited.

THOMAS SAYERS ELLIS was born and raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. He co-founded The Dark Room Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1988 and earned a M.F.A. from Brown University in 1995. His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry, Grand Street, Tin House, Ploughshares and The Best American Poetry, 1997 and 2001. He has received fellowships and grants from The Fine Arts Work Center, the Ohio Arts Council, Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony. Mr. Ellis is a contributing editor to Callaloo and Poets and Writers and a frequent contributor to WaxPoetics. In 2005 he was awarded a Mrs. Giles Whiting Writers’ Award. His first, full collection, The Maverick Room, was published by Graywolf Press in 2005 and awarded The 2006 John C. Zacharis First Book Award. He is also the author of The Good Junk (Take Three #1, Graywolf 1996); a chapbook The Genuine Negro Hero (Kent State University Press, 2001) and the chaplet Song On (WinteRed Press 2005). Ellis is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College and a faculty member of The Lesley University low-residency M.F.A program (Cambridge, Massachusetts). His Breakfast and Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets is forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press, Poets on Poetry Series. For more about Ellis, visit his homepage.

*

In addition to bookmarking our blog, we hope you’ll check out the NWS on LibraryThing local here. You can join our Facebook groups here (global) and here (local).

A full Soderberg Auditorium greeted poet Stephen Cope and experimental essayist Catherine Taylor for the third event of the spring 2008 NWS. Cope read from his latest manuscript, “The Bellerophonic Letter,” including several provocative poems such as “Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Assassination of a President,” while Taylor read engaging excerpts from her latest hybrid genre essay “Duffer’s Drift.”

Photos

Stephen Cope reads from his manuscript.

Catherine Taylor reading from her manuscript.

Cope and Taylor talked about genre and editing with UMaine grad students, undergraduates, and faculty members later the same evening.

Set List

Stephen Cope

All selections from “The Bellerophonic Letter”
1) Untitled
2) Version, Vertige
3) Version, Vertige: I am Tiger Woods
4) Epistemophilia
5) Say’s Laws
6) Say’s Law
7) Epistemophilia
8 Conference of the Birds
9) Autumn Leaves
10) Autumn Leaves
11) The Way You Look Tonight
12) The Way You Look Tonight
13) The Way You Look Tonight
14) “There needn’t be…”
15) “A thief steals skulls…”
16) Subset from “Conference of the Birds” (selections—all untitled)
17) Past Chance
1 If it’s Grace it Comes Accidentally
19) The Gentle Ham Sandwich…
20) Solo
21) Objective Perfection
22) The Flowers for Catherine
23) Election
24) Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Assassination of a President

Catherine Taylor

Selections from a hybrid genre essay about South Africa
1) “Duffer’s Drift”

—Event report by Katie Lattari