TWC Open Door & The Delmarva Review Reading

TWC Open Door & The Delmarva Review Reading

This Sunday, December 4, The Writer's Center will have a “double header,” with readings by poets Kathleen Ossip and W.M. Rivera at 2:00 p.m., followed by a 5:00 p.m. reading celebrating the publication of The Delmarva Review’s 4^th Volume. 'Tis the season for great writing. For more information, read on.

TWC Open Door Reading, 2:00 p.m.:

Kathleen Ossip is the author of two books of poems, The Search Engine and The Cold War, and one chapbook, Cinephrastics. Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Paris Review, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, the Washington Post, Fence, The Believer, and Poetry Review (London). She teaches at The New School in New York, where she was a founding editor of LIT, and she's the poetry editor of Women's Studies Quarterly. She has received a fellowship in poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as grants from Bread Loaf, the Ragdale Foundation, and Yaddo.

W.M. Rivera’s most recent poetry collection, Buried in the Mind’s Backyard, was published in 2011. His poems have been published in the Nation, Prairie Schooner, the Kenyon Review, the New Laurel Review, the California Quarterly, Gargoyle, The Ghazal Page (online), The Curator Magazine (online), The Broome Review, and Innisfree. His first book of poetry was published in 1960 titled The End of Legend’s String, illustrated by Mexican artist, José Luis Cuevas—drawer, engraver, and sculptor. Rivera’s academic and professional activities in agricultural development have taken him to more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

The Delmarva Review Reading, 5:00 p.m:

The Delmarva Review, a journal of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, is published by the Eastern Shore Writers Association, a nonprofit organization of writers across the tri-state region of the Delmarva Peninsula. Join us in celebrating publication of Volume 4. Six authors published in the new issue will read at The Writer’s Center at 5 pm Sunday, December 4. They are among 33 authors from seven states, the District of Columbia and the Ukraine whose original work is included in the 2011 edition. Copies of the Review are available from The Writer’s Center, the publication’s website at www.delmarvareview.com, and in a digital edition from Kindle on www.amazon.com, for download to tablets, cell phones and other reading devices.

The readers are:

Margaret Adams is a Maine-born writer and former columnist for the Bangor Daily News. Her work has most recently appeared in Urbanite Magazine, Johns Hopkins Nursing Magazine, and Down East Magazine. A graduate of Vassar College, she is studying nursing and public health at Johns Hopkins University. She is from Baltimore, MD.

Iain S. Baird is an award-winning memoirist and writer of short fiction and creative nonfiction. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he has had stories published in the Seven Hills Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Timber Creek Review, and Oracle. A memoir, Two Storms, was published in 2010. Iain is from Annapolis, MD and New Orleans, LA.

Linda Blaskey, winner of the 2008 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize for her chapbook, Farm, was the recipient of a fellowship grant from the Delaware Division of Arts. Her short story, “The Haircut,” was dramatically produced by Philadelphia’s InterAct Theatre. She is from Lincoln, DE.

Anne Colwell, whose first book, Believing Their Shadows, was published by Word Press in 2010, has published work in numerous literary reviews. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she received an Established Artist Award in Poetry and an emerging Artist Award in Fiction from the Delaware State Arts Council. Anne is assistant professor of English at University of Delaware. She is from Milton, DE.

Nan Fry is the author of a book of poems, Relearning the Dark. Her work appears in literary magazines, textbooks, and anthologies, including The Beastly Bride, published by Viking. She teaches at The Writer’s Center. Nan is from Cabin John, Maryland.

Margaret Rodenberg is a former computer industry executive. Her writing has won awards from Writers Digest Magazine, the San Francisco Writers Conference, James Rivers Writers Group, and Carve Magazine. She is currently writing a novel from Napoleon Bonaparte's point of view and blogs at: FindingNapoleon.com. Margaret lives in Reston, VA.

We can't wait to see you on Sunday!

TWC Members Contribute to The Delmarva Review

The Eastern Shore Writers’ Association released the fourth edition of The Delmarva Review on Sept. 26, 2011. Several instructors and members of The Writer’s Center, including Poet Lore editor E. Ethelbert Miller, have contributed to the new edition. The Review highlights original poetry, short stories, and nonfiction from writers in the Chesapeake region, although work from writers outside the region is also eligible. The new edition is expanded from previous editions, including five short stories, 28 poems, three essays, and five reviews of recent notable books.

Featured work by TWC contributors includes Ken Ackerman (book review), Kate Blackwell (book review), J. Wesley Clark, Nan Fry, E. Ethelbert Miller, Richard Peabody, and Sue Ellen Thompson.

The 2011 issue is for sale at The Writer’s Center as well as regional bookstores, including the News Center in Easton, Mystery Loves Company in Oxford, Creative Xpressions, in St. Michaels. Single issues are $10 each. Two-year subscriptions are $18. An order form can be downloaded from the website: www.delmarvareview.com.

On Sunday Dec. 4 at 5 pm, The Delmarva Review will hold a reading at TWC.

Fiction writers are also encouraged to enter the Delmarva Review Short Story Prize Contest, which concludes on Nov. 1. Details can be found at www.delmarvareview.com

Freedom and Form in Poetry by Nan Fry

This week on First Person Plural, Tuesday is Fry-day. TGIF? I think so, and you will too after reading below!


Freedom and Form in Poetry
by Nan Fry

Ezra Pound has said that “…some poems have form as a tree has form, some as water poured into a vase.” For years, I preferred the organic form of the tree and saw symmetrical
structures as unnecessarily restricting. Why then am I teaching a workshop entitled
“Poetry Free and Formal”? I have come to realize that the terms “free” and “formal”
are not so much opposites as points on a continuum.

Several years ago, when I attended Westchester University’s Conference on Form and Narrative in Poetry, I told myself and others that I was there for the narrative only. Then I realized that I write riddles and that such poems do indeed have a form, albeit a flexible one, as they use metaphor, imagery, and sometimes paradox to present something familiar in a way that is mysterious. In this case, the form is more a model or a goal, rather than a confining structure. It gives me a direction to go in but does not limit the paths I can choose.

Form can also be liberating. Recently, in “Making It New,” a workshop I just taught at The Writer’s Center, I saw this principle in action. I’d suggested that the participants try a poem modeled on Wallace Stevens’ “Disillusionment of Ten O’clock,” a list of all the things that were not happening in the speaker’s neighborhood at night. One student came in the next week with a poem on the stock exchange—the things it cannot do. I think we were all surprised that she had written so well on something so timely yet seemingly unpoetic. As we discussed her work, she said, “Form is amazing—it gives you permission to do whatever you want.” Later, she said that she had been surprised by what she had written and that she probably couldn’t have done as well if she had approached the subject directly.

That is the delight of poetry—either free or formal—we surprise ourselves and discover our poems as we write them. As Theodore Roethke said, in his wonderful villanelle, “The Waking,” “I learn by going where I have to go.” In “Poetry Free and Formal,” we will explore ways to give our free verse shapeliness and musicality and will experiment with flexible and symmetrical forms that may suggest direction and perhaps open up new possibilities.

Nan Fry will be leading “Poetry Free and Formal” at The Writer’s Center starting September 22.

She is the author of two collections of poetry, Relearning the Dark and Say What I Am Called, a chapbook of riddles she translated from the Anglo-Saxon. She taught in the Academic Studies Department at the Corcoran College of Art + Design for over 20 years. Nan has poems forthcoming in the Delmarva Review and Spillway as well as an essay in the winter issue of Poet Lore. Her work can also be found online in the archives of the Poetry Society of America and of The Rambling Epicure.

Wrapping Up the Week with Robert J. Samuelson and More

A brief post today. First, on June 6 Sally and John Freeman will be hosting a special cocktails and conversation (and dinner) event at their home. That event features Robert J. Samuelson, the award-winning writer and author of the new book The Great Inflation and its Aftermath. Sally is a hardworking board member at The Writer's Center, and she and John have put this event together as a benefit. You can learn more about it by clicking here to be directed to a page on this blog.

Next, the editors of the hilarious Bethesda World News are looking for a summer intern. Here's the job description:

New Publication Seeks Intern--Must Be Funny
Looking for a fun way to gain journalism experience? We're seeking a
summer intern to help with various aspects of publishing a fledgling
parody newspaper. Must have a sense of humor, web/social media knowledge,
and your own laptop. Duties may include promotional activities, website
maintenance, idea-generating, video production, and writing. Please note,
this is an unpaid position. Hours/days flexible, p/t. We're willing to look
into college credit, if that's a factor. Please email your resume and
direct any questions to The Editors at bethesdaworldnews@gmail.com.

And finally, workshop leader Nan Fry was recently interviewed by Charles Tan over at Sfsignal.com. Nan was recently published in Viking's anthology The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Nan Fry: The Poetry Experiment

Today we have poet and workshop leader Nan Fry, in a post that originally appeared in The Carousel, Winter 2008. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Relearning the Dark (WWPH) and Say What I Am Called (Sibyl-Child), a chapbook of riddles she translated from the Anglo-Saxon. For over twenty years she taught in the Academic Studies Department at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Her work has appeared in many literary journals, anthologies, and textbooks. Her poems can also be found online in the archives of The Journal of Mythic Arts, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and Beltway Poetry
Quarterly. Here she is discussing her upcoming workshop.


“Sources and Origins of Poetry,” one of the workshops I teach at The Writer’s Center, grew out of my practice as a poet and instructor. Early on, I was intrigued by poems about ordinary objects by writers such as Charles Simic and Nancy Willard. At the same time, I found myself re-reading the Anglo-Saxon riddles that I’d studied (and translated slowly, word by word) as a graduate student. In these poems, a familiar thing or creature is described in ways that are both accurate and mysterious. The accuracy comes from closely observed details, while metaphor creates a sense of mystery. I admired the way those Old English poets presented the ordinary in ways that were still fresh and surprising. With that model in mind, I found myself describing—and addressing—the sprouts I was growing under my kitchen sink.

Alfalfa Sprouts

You’re born and grow in secrecy,

in moisture and darkness.


Together you’re a shock

of thick, wavy hair.


Singly—a small green heart

squeezing out a spindly stem.


When I tuck you into an omelet,

wrap you in that bright yellow blanket,

you stick out all over

like curious children

who won’t go to bed


or like those people in pictures

hanging out of the dragon’s maw,

all dangling arms and legs

furiously signaling

their final protest.


As I eat you I graze

back to my animal past

munching the earth-sweet

grasses and hay.

(From Relearning the Dark, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 1991)

In working on this poem, I realized that one source of poetry—my experience—was as close to me as the blanket on my bed and the darkness under my sink. I also discovered that if I was stuck, I could sometimes lure the muse by placing an object such as an apple, a plum, or a roll of scotch tape on my desk, staring at it, and then describing it or letting it or letting it describe itself.

Like the Anglo-Saxon riddles, which were probably composed during the seventh through the ninth centuries, all poetry was originally oral and had to be memorable in order to survive. Though we no longer face that particular challenge, poets today still use some of the strategies of those early bards. In “Sources and Origins,” the participants and I seek inspiration in ancient forms such as proverbs, lists, chants, charms, and riddles, and also explore how contemporary poets draw from these inexhaustible wells to create work that is fresh and compelling.

For instance, proverbs, which distill the traditional wisdom of a people, had to be brief and to stick in the mind like a burr in a dog’s fur. Often employing rhyme, alliteration, parallel structure, and striking imagery, proverbs are models of poetic economy that suggest much while saying little. They have inspired poets as diverse as William Blake, the French surrealists Paul Eluard and Benjamin Péret, and Mark Strand. Whether or not we wish to write actual proverbs, I’ve found that reading traditional and current examples can help us to write evocatively and precisely and to approach the sound, structure, and imagery of our poems in new and useful ways.

List poems, which also have an ancient lineage, provide a more expansive model and a way of bringing sensory detail and the richness of experience into our work. Our sources here might include American Indian chants; Homer; Ovid; Walt Whitman, with his exuberantly long lines; or Gary Snyder, who turned the to-do list into an art form. Another contemporary poet, Joe Brainard, took the association of catalog verse and memory to new levels with his I Remember books. Even people who swear they can’t remember what they had for breakfast find themselves inspired by his wonderfully inclusive lists.

In their experiments, scientists bring together different substances to see how they will react, often in the hope of creating something new. I suspect something similar happens with poetry. Whether they are drawn from ancient or contemporary works, the models I use in this workshop are presented not for slavish imitation but as catalysts, as points of departure, and examples of possibility. Poems written against or in negative reaction to the models are always welcome. In-class exercises and longer at-home assignments are offered as experiments, something to try in a spirit of inquiry and exploration. Such practice will, I believe, strengthen our ability to observe and to imagine, two sources of poetry we all have within us. Our goal is not to “get it right” but to write—that is—to generate material and to find fruitful ways to approach the creative process.