Arts

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Winning Writers Has Been Kind

IMG_0725I was grateful to learn  I earned Honorable Mention in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest:

Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2015

Congratulations to the winners of the 2015 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest!

 Honorable Mention:

Judge Ellaraine Lockie comments on the winning entries

Traditional poetry forms have had a blockbuster year in the 2015 Contest. The winners’ list includes: two sonnet crowns, two sestinas, a villanelle, a palindrome, a pantoum, an elegy, three ekphrastic poems, and two poems with such distinct and unique construction as to be classified nonce forms. Read our press release announcing the winners.

You can read my winning poem, and the other winners as well at:

https://winningwriters.com/our-contests/contest-archives/tom-howard-margaret-reid-poetry-contest-2015

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Translation: Crossing Literary Limits April 9

 

The Translation Workshop is just one of the many interesting workshops at the Easthampton Literary Festival this Saturday, April 9.

This teach-in for readers will demystify the art of translation. Learn about the translator’s role and craft, their impact on literature and culture, and the process of developing a text.

Audience participation will be encouraged through brief written exercises.

Location:
Easthampton Co.Lab, 116 Pleasant St., #301 (3rd floor)

Directions:
Park in the East lot of Eastworks. Enter under the white marquee. Take the elevator or stairs up to the 3rd floor. Walk to the second hallway on the left. Go down all the way to the end. Suite 301 is the last door on the right.

Workshop lead by translators Jeff Diteman and Michael Goldman.

Jeff Diteman is a writer, translator, and multimedia artist from Idaho, currently studying for his PhD in Comparative Literature at UMass Amherst. He previously studied at the College of Idaho (BA magna cum laude 2002), the Sorbonne Paris IV (2002-2003), and the University of Granada (2011). He has over 10 years of experience as a full-time freelance translator, working from the French and Spanish. His translations and original writings have appeared in Drunken Boat, The Missing Slate, and Nailed Magazine, and his constrained translations of Raymond Queneau are featured in the upcoming issue of Inventory from Princeton University. He is currently translating Pablo Martín Sánchez’s historical novel El Anarquista Que Se Llamaba Como Yo, slated for publication by Deep Vellum Publishing in 2017.

Michael Goldman taught himself Danish on a pig farm in Denmark over 30 years ago to help him win the heart of a lovely Danish girl. Over 80 of Goldman’s translations of poetry and prose have appeared in over 30 literary journals such as Rattle, World Literature Today, and International Poetry Review. His two books, “The Dream About Farming,” a collection of translated farming poetry, and “Stories About Tacit,” a translated rural novel, are forthcoming in 2016. His original poetry appeared in Poet Lore and The Fourth River. He lives in Florence, Mass.

The Easthampton Bookfest offers a full day of events that highlight the rich literary culture in the Pioneer Valley. Find out more atwww.easthamptoncityarts.com/bookfest.

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Help Massachusetts get a Poet Laureate

books

Did you know that Massachusetts is one of only five states without an official poet laureate? The home of Bishop, Bradstreet, Dickinson, Cummings, Kunitz, Longfellow, Frost, Olson, Sexton, Plath, Lowell… And no poet laureate? Ouch!

A bill to remedy the situation has already passed the state house. Contact the senate Ways and Means Committee to ask that the bill is brought up for a vote, and that we have a Massachusetts state poet laureate.

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Pushcart Nomination

My publisher, Flutter Press, has been kind.  Flutter Press nominated me for a Pushcart Prize for my poem, “Eulogy for the Costa Rican Ghosts,” from my new collection of poems, Banshees:

http://flutterpress2009.blogspot.com/p/pushcart-nominees.html

The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published annually, is one of the most honored literary projects in America. Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in their annual collections. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series. Every volume contains an index of past selections, plus lists of outstanding presses with addresses. Among poets who have won this prize are Wendell Berry, Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Donald Hall, Jane Hirshfield, Tony Hoagland, W.S. Merwin, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Robert Pinsky, James Tate, and William Carlos Williams, to name a few.

Here’s an excerpt from “Eulogy for the Costa Rican Ghosts.”

I feel their aching in the night air

their souls shaking in the tropical trees.

I remember their presence here

and bear them closer as time goes by…

my years stealing to inevitable death.

I am grateful for the nomination. Wish me luck with the competition!

pushcartprize1

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Amherst Books Reading

  • Thursday, November 19th at 6:00pm (Reading)
book cover

Pilot & writer, Mark Vanhoenacker will read from his wonderful new book about flying, Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot   A Pittsfield, Massachusetts native, Vanhoenacker left a job as a management consultant in 2001 to become a pilot & has since split his time between the skies & the page.   He’s now a senior first officer with British Airways.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.