Three past visitors to the NYS Writers Institute appear on the National Book Award's longlist for the award in poetry.
They include Lucie Brock-Broido, for Stay, Illusion; Andrei Codrescu for So Recently Rent a World, New and Selected Poems: 1968-2012; and Frank Bidart for Metaphysical Dog.
See Frank Bidart speak at the Institute on Youtube in 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReSgPXq2W_8
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
National Book Award Poetry Longlist Announced
Monday, September 16, 2013
Poet Philip Levine wins $100k Prize
Former United States poet laureate Philip Levine has been awarded the Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award for lifetime achievement. The award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, is given annually for “outstanding and proven mastery of the art of poetry.”
Here are some links:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/philip-levine-is-awarded-100000-poetry-prize/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24077281
Levine visited the Writers Institute in 1996: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/levine.html. A video about the visit aired in 1999 on "The Writer," a series coproduced by the Writers Institute and WMHT.
Sydney Lea on Poetry
"Poetry can achieve something that's far less available to
other modes of human discourse: it can present several thoughts, emotions,
impulses, some in apparent flat contradiction of one another, in a single
vessel, without seeming merely muddled." --Sydney Lea
Sydney Lea, Vermont Poet Laureate (2011-14) by order of Governor Peter Shumlin, visits tomorrow to share the campfire circle (so to speak) with official New York State Poet Marie Howe. The afternoon event is at UAlbany. The evening event is at the State Museum.
More: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/howe_lea13.html Read More......
Marie Howe on Poetry
"Poetry knows that we are living and dying at the same
time. It resurrects us. It brings us to our senses. " --Marie Howe
Marie Howe, New York State Poet (2012-14) by order of Governor Andrew Cuomo, under the auspices of the NYS Writers Institute, visits tomorrow to share the pulpit with Vermont Poet Laureate Sydney Lea. The afternoon event is at UAlbany. The evening event is at the State Museum.
Poetry for Farmers and Retired Roofers
Q: You've written that if you picture an audience in your mind at all as you write, it's your Vermont hill farm neighbors, who, you note, would never elect to read a word of your poetry. Why write for them?
A: I have a feeling that too much poetry since the era of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot sends this message, whether subliminally or not: "Hey, you can't come in here; you haven't learned the language that we insiders use." One of the reasons I so admire Robert Frost is that any reader — from a first-grader to a graduate student to a farmer to a labor organizer — can get something out of his poems. Those poems are scarcely simple-minded; indeed they are profoundly complex. But complexity is not the same as complication.
Imagining that my beloved 90-year-old neighbor — not a farmer, but a retired roofer — might read a poem of mine and get something out of it too — keeps me from erring toward mere complication.
Read more here: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/The-nature-of-words-4809616.php#photo-5177268
Read more about Lea's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/howe_lea13.html Read More......
Friday, September 13, 2013
A Poem by Sydney Lea, Who Visits Tuesday, Sept. 17
Bestselling food writer Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), calls Sydney Lea “as fine a companion on the page as American writing about nature has to offer.” Indeed, Lea is widely regarded as the Robert Frost of his generation.
Lea visits this Tuesday to share the lectern with poet Marie Howe.
More about their visit here: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/howe_lea13.html
Much of Lea's poetry is inspired by the natural world and rural Vermont settings. Here's an example, "Cooking by Waters: An Non-Elegy," which appears on his website. The poem was first published in the Hudson Review, Autumn 2008.
The birch’s skin curls up like an ancient
letter.
The sweet smoke makes my breathing
harder.
On a streamside fir three goldfinches
teeter.
Late sun makes a tumult along their
feathers.
In an hour the hermit thrush will have
begun.
I accept the bittersweet gift of the
weather in fall.
The air’s so clear the only haze is
inward.
How did I learn these names and calls?
I can’t be sure. They simply gathered.
Read more of the poem here: http://sydneylea.net (click on "Sampler").
Read More......
Two Poets Laureate in Conversation this Tuesday 9/17
Marie Howe, New York State Poet (2012-2014) and Sydney Lea, Vermont Poet Laureate (2011-2014) will read from their work and discuss the role of poetry in society on Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. in the Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center in downtown Albany. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m., the poets will present an informal seminar in the Standish Room, Science Library, on the University at Albany uptown campus. The events are free and open to the public, and are cosponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and Friends of the New York State Library.
Marie Howe and Sydney Lea, reigning state poets of New York and Vermont, will present a joint reading and discuss the role of poetry in today's society.
Appointed State Poet (2012 – 2014) by Governor Andrew Cuomo under the auspices of the NYS Writers Institute, Marie Howe is the author of three collections of poetry: The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (2008), What the Living Do (1997), and The Good Thief (1988), which was selected by Margaret Atwood for the National Poetry Series. The Rochester native and New York City resident is also the past recipient of the Lavan Younger Poets Prize of the American Academy of Poets. In 1995, she coedited the bestselling anthology, In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic (with Michael Klein), which helped many AIDS victims "find their voices" as poets and storytellers. She currently teaches at NYU where she is launching a Fall 2013 course entitled "Poetry Everywhere," an immersive production class which seeks to put poetry in unexpected New York City public spaces.
Howe is widely admired for poetry that seeks answers to metaphysical questions in ordinary day-to-day experience. In her work, little incidents and inconsequential memories help to shed light on the nature of the soul and the self, as well as the meaning of life, death, love, pain, hope, despair, sin, virtue, solitude, community, impermanence and the eternal. Playwright Eve Ensler said of her most recent collection, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, "These poems made me gasp. Each one a revelation, a lifeline, a domestic galaxy. This is the poetry of our times, a guide to living on the brink of the mystical and the mundane."
Appointed Poet Laureate by Governor Peter Shumlin under the auspices of the Vermont Arts Council, Sydney Lea is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including I Was Thinking of Beauty (2013); Growing Old in Poetry: Two Poets, Two Lives (with Delaware Poet Laureate Fleda Brown, 2013); Pursuit of a Wound (2000), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; To the Bone: New and Selected Poems (1996), a co-winner of the Poet's Prize; and Prayer for the Little City (1991). The American Book Review said of To the Bone, "It's past time that this poet's memorable best work should be known and praised and analyzed and loved as well as Frost's is."
Much of his work focuses on the mystery of the natural world and the physical details of life in a rural setting. He recently published the essay collection, A North Country Life: Tales of Woodsmen, Waters, and Wildlife (2013). The Wall Street Journal reviewer said, "Sydney Lea is a fisherman, a hunter, a philosopher, a trainer of bird dogs, an interpreter of the past and a collector of stories. This abundance of experience shows up to good effect.... He writes memorably. His stories ring true."
The founder and long-time editor of the influential literary magazine, The New England Review, Lea is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright Foundations.
Lea is a dedicated environmental activist and serves currently as President of Downeast Lakes Land Trust, an organization dedicated to creating a million-acre wildlife preserve on the border between Maine and the province of New Brunswick. He also serves as President/Treasurer of the adult literacy organization, Central Vermont Adult Basic Education.
For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.
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Related Media
- Marie Howe, New York State Poet Photo: Brad Fowler: http://app.readmedia.com/news/attachment/52174/Howebw_16251_0.jpg
- Sydney Lea, Vermont Poet Laureate Photo: Bruce Paul
Richards: http://app.readmedia.com/news/attachment/52175/syd_lea_at_home_with_birch_16251_0.JPG
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