Vitality. Fellowship. Healing. These are the qualities the arts spark, and they are what North Carolina needs to rebuild its economy and emerge resiliently from the pandemic. This is why the North Carolina Arts Council created Spark the Arts. Arts organizations of all sorts may download the pdf here: http://SparkTheArts_Logo_Guide.pdf
SPARK THE ARTS is an awareness campaign designed to inspire public participation in the arts -- including poetry events -- across North Carolina by highlighting the unique way the arts lift spirits, bring people together, and heal. Our goal is to ignite the resurgence of North Carolina’s arts sector from the pandemic by connecting residents and visitors to arts experiences and arts stories across our state.
The hashtag #SparkTheArtsNC hashtag promotes in-person arts events now. In-person poetry events, even those that are ZOOMED simultaneously, are invited to use the logos and the hashtag.
JANUARY 14 MEETING WILL BE VIRTUAL
Topic: NC Poetry Society Meeting January 14, 2023
Time: Jan 14, 2023 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Please join us on January 14, 2023, for a virtual meeting with featured speaker NC Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green in the morning and an afternoon workshop with Dasan Ahanu.
Afternoon Workshop: The Art of Self
Spoken Word is the art of performance poetry. It can be emotional, inspirational, educational, and as creative and expressive as your imagination. It can also be a tool for healing and growth. How you bring your words to life is about how prepared you are to deliver them. It is why it is seen as catharsis. Spoken word combines creative writing with the skill of oration and the subtle nuance of theatre and improvisation. It is an exercise in affirmation and self-determination. It is a way to have necessary conversations with those who may not want to, may not be prepared to, or didn’t know they needed to have them. This workshop explores the possibilities of the art form. It discusses technique, individual voice, and presence. It also provides the participant with an understanding of how this art form can be transformational and impactful for those who learn to share who they are and the words in their soul with an audience. Through various activities and discussion, this workshop seeks to give its participants a sense of what this art form can do for us all.
Jaki Shelton Green, the ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina, is the first African American and third woman to be appointed North Carolina Poet Laureate. She was reappointed in 2021 for a second term by Governor Roy Cooper. Jaki is a 2019 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, and 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. Jaki Shelton Green teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and was the 2021 Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence at UNC Chapel Hill. She received the George School Outstanding Alumni Award in 2021. Her publications include Dead on Arrival, Masks, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, breath of the song, Feeding the Light, i want to undie you, and i want to undie you English /Italian bilingual edition. In 2020 she released her first poetry album, The River Speaks of Thirst, and a CD, i want to undie you. Jaki Shelton Green serves as the 2022-2024 Poet Laureate in Residence at the North Carolina Museum of Art. She is listed on the Forbes distinguished 2022 list of Fifty Over Fifty Women.
Afternoon workshop guest speaker Dasan Ahanu is an award-winning poet and performance artist, cultural organizer, educator, scholar, and emcee based in Durham, North Carolina. He is an Alumni Nasir Jones Fellow at Harvard’s Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute, resident artist at the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation/Hayti Heritage Center, and visiting lecturer at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dasan has participated in regional and national poetry slams. He has performed across the country, appeared on national radio and TV, and published four books of poetry. Dasan has also been featured in various periodicals and released several recordings. He works with organizations and institutions to develop effective arts strategies to enhance their work in the community. He swings a mean pen and represents the SOUTH.
CRAFT TIP FOR JANUARY
Each of us is a product of hundreds of experiences and the people who have shaped us. I’ve written poems to my parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and even a few to my dog, Louis. I’ve written a poem to the man who stole my book I was selling at a book fair and one about my high school chemistry teacher’s ritual of handing tests back from highest to lowest score. Ignoring these gems in my own writing would be like standing on a whale while fishing for minnows.
At a recent workshop I gave, I walked the attendees through the following exercise and was pleasantly surprised at what came out of it. There were poems to fathers, English teachers, and lost loves. One attendee wrote a poem to the judge of a poetry contest she won as a child, which led her toward a lifelong love of poetry. The exercise takes less than an hour and I guarantee you’ll get something fresh and rewarding out of it.
Take 10 minutes and make a list of people who have influenced you in some way. Think of family members, long-lost relatives, coaches, and teachers. Dig as deeply as you can. Take another 10 minutes and record a specific memory of as many people on your list as possible. It could be something they said to you, a moment you shared with them, or a long-lasting impression they left. Finally, take 30 minutes and write a poem (or longhand letter, if you prefer) that is about or is addressed to one of the people on your list.
Submitted by Chris Abbate
The Nominating Committee proudly announces the PROPOSED SLATE OF OFFICERS FOR 2023-2025
President Alana Dagenhart Vice President of Programming Melinda Thomsen Vice President of Membership Joan Barasovska Vice President of Membership Garrett Sharpe Vice President of Communications Emily McConnell Adult Contests Director Ashley Lumpkin Student Contests Director Jonathan Giles Recording Secretary Kathy Ackerman Treasurer Bill Griffin
Members-at-Large
Deborah H. Doolittle
Elaine Bauman
Hunt McKinnon
President Emerita
Celestine Davis
We're fortunate that the majority of Board members will continue serving on the NCPS Board. Please see the bios below for those members that are new to the Board or are serving in a new role. For current Board member bios, please visit https://www.ncpoetrysociety.org/officer-bios/
Many thanks to the Nominating Committee, Board members, and all NCPS members for creating a welcoming poetry community!
Alana Dagenhart is a poet, artist, teacher, and traveler interested in the influence and impact of place on the native and the visitor. She graduated
from UNC-Charlotte with a BA in English, Gardner Webb University with an MA in English, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a PhD in
Literature and Criticism. In an effort to focus more on the craft of poetry, she completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University in 2020.
Her research interests include ecocriticism, Appalachian studies, Latin American poetics, multi-ethnic literature, and pedagogy. She lives in
Statesville with her husband José Rogelio Calvo, their dog Ela, and cats Paco & Luna. Dagenhart first served as VP of Membership for the North
Carolina Poetry Society from March 2018 to December 2020 and currently coordinates the Lena Shull Poetry Book Contest. She has served on the
boards of the Iredell County Arts Council and the Thomas Wolfe Society. Her recent poetry highlights connections between her Appalachian roots
and the cultural environment and experience of the sojourner in Central America. Her chapbook Blood was published by Finishing Line Press, and
Yellow Leaves was published by Redhawk this year. She is professor of English at Johnson & Wales University, Charlotte where she teaches
composition, literature, and creative writing.
Melinda Thomsen’s the author of Armature from Hermit Feathers Press. Armature was a finalist for the 2022 Eric Hoffer da Vinci Eye award and
honorable mention in the 2019 Lena Shull Poetry Contest. Her chapbooks Naming Rights (2007) and Field Rations (2011) are from Finishing Line
Press. Her latest poems are forthcoming, or recently published, in Salamander Magazine, Artemis Journal, THEMA, Kakalak, The Ekphrastic
Review, and Poetry Quarterly. Her honors include a 2019 Pushcart Nomination from The Comstock Review, First Place in 2019 Robert
Golden Poetry Contest, and Semi-Finalist in the 2004 The Nation’s poetry contest. She’s an advisory editor for Tar River Poetry and secretary for
Nexus Poets in New Bern. Melinda earned her MA studying with William Matthews at the City College, CUNY, and later her MFA in Creative
Writing, Poetry, from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Melinda lives in Greenville with her husband, Hunt McKinnon, two cats, and one chicken.
Elaine Bauman, a native of NYC, came to the Triangle from Oak Park, just west of Chicago and now lives in Durham, NC. Elaine’s a retired
teacher and corporate trainer (Siemens) who has created and led workshops in creativity and problem solving. For almost a decade now,
Elaine’s been an enthusiastic participant in Jo Taylor’s Funshops, exchanging support and critique with talented poets and has published
poetry with the Heron Clan, Old Mountain Press, and American Open Mike out of Chicago. She recently presented her own chapbook, To Hold it
All So Gently.
Hunt McKinnon currently teaches natural science at The Oakwood School in Greenville, NC. He holds a BA in Politics and a Bachelor of Environmental Design in Architecture from NC State, and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University. From 2000 until retiring from teaching full time in 2012, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department College of Human Ecology at ECU. He has been a Visiting Associate Professor at the College of Design at NC State and a Visiting Lecturer at Duke University's Department of Continuing Education. He also worked as a lead architect and project manager for various private clients and is a Registered Architect in North and South Carolina with a NCARB, NCIDQ, and LEED AP Certificates. He’s the President of ReLeaf, a community-based, volunteer and nonprofit organization that plants, promotes, and protects canopy trees to restore and nurture Greenville's urban
forest. He’s also an active member of the evening Rotary Club in Greenville. Hunt’s the author of The Many Roofs of Monticello: A Case Study and a contributor to the Graphic Standards of Architecture. He’s also the proud father of Kristiana McKinnon and his granddaughter Wilder Rose Hardee. He’s married to Melinda Thomsen McKinnon, and they live in Greenville with their two cats, Joey and Boo, and one chicken, Alice.
Emily McConnell is an instructor of Developmental and Curriculum English at Pitt Community College in Winterville, NC. Prior to her employment at PCC, McConnell worked as a communications manager in the automotive industry. She has a M.A. in English from National University and a B.A. in
English from Messiah College. She also has a certificate in Health Communications from ECU. McConnell lives in Ayden, NC with her husband and three daughters.
eMuse Seeking Your Poetic Writing Expertise for Craft Tips
If you have advice and tips to share with your fellow NCPS members, consider submitting them to be featured in eMuse.
Your craft tip should be submitted in a Word doc of no more than 250 words. Please include a title and your name.
To honor its mission to promote and support writers who are a part of our state’s rich literary tradition, NCLR acknowledges the contribution of Spoken Word artists and poetic performances. Traditional rhythms and storytelling in prose and verse are woven into the emotional and cultural history of North Carolina, from the mountains to the coast. The Spoken Word tradition in North Carolina was built on the legacy of musical greats such as Thaddeus Monk, George Clinton, Shirley Cesar, and Nina Simone and has been fueled by the cultural heritage of storytelling and musicality embedded within the African American experience. From the streets to community stages to the state’s 11 HBCUs, the global influence of Hip Hop helped shape performance poetry platforms, but performance poetry is a broad umbrella, and we welcome submissions in any subgenre of performance poetry: hip hop, spoken word, slam . . . It is broader, deeper, more diverse, and more fluid than all these influences. Through this contest, NCLR and the North Carolina Poetry Society will showcase what we hope will be some of the best work by emerging and preeminent performance poets in North Carolina.
Jaki Shelton Green is the first African American and third woman appointed North Carolina Poet Laureate. Her poetry and spell-binding readings have captivated diverse audiences in North Carolina and worldwide through live performances and recorded media. She embodies the authority, empathy, and wisdom to balance the duality of the “southernness” and the complexity of humanness that audiences find electrifying, authentic, instructive, and inspirational.
Eligibility Criteria & Submission Guidelines
The Jaki Shelton Green Performance Poetry Prize competition is open to any writer who fits the NCLR definition of a North Carolina writer: anyone who currently lives in North Carolina, has lived in North Carolina, or uses North Carolina as subject matter. Poetry submissions do NOT have to relate to an issue’s special feature topic.
If you are both a NCPS member and an NCLR subscriber, you can submit two performance video recordings.
You can subscribe/join after submitting. Please do so by the contest deadline.
The performed poem must be an original composition and the author of the piece must be the performer.
The submitter must own the exclusive, transferable rights to all submission elements. This includes, but is not limited to, written text, audio, video, and images.
Performance is the critical component of this contest.
Sounds, instruments, or musical backgrounds are allowed to complement the delivery, but supplementary audios are neither required nor encouraged.
If you elect to use these elements, they should not distract from your delivery. No deduction or special consideration will be made if the contestant does or does not include a musical background. The overall quality of the performance will be paramount. The poetry may be delivered from memory or with a copy in hand; however, performance is the critical component of this contest.
Submit via this contest’s category on NCLR’s Submittable page between {INSERT DATES HERE}.
Complete submission directions are provided within our Submittable site.
Only one poem/performance per video submission.
No more than 2 submissions per poet allowed (see above for more information about multiple submissions).
The length of each video must be under 5 minutes. Videos over 5 minutes will be disqualified.
File size may not exceed 40 MB. (We recommend filming at 720p, so your video is no larger than 30MB.)
If you have any difficulty uploading through Submittable, contact NCLR at NCLRStaff@ecu.edufor help uploading to a Dropbox or other such folder.
The final judge will choose the winning poem and other honorees from these finalists.
All who submit will receive notification of the competition results via Submittable within 3-4 months of the deadline, and a press release will be posted on the NCLR website and in social media, as well as sent out to the media.
The winning performance (and select finalists’) recordings will be uploaded to NCLR‘s Youtube channel and shared publicly via NCLR Online and NCLR‘s social media platforms.
The winner and honorees will also be invited to showcase their performances in person at a North Carolina Poetry Society event.
The 2023 Pinesong Awards are open for just a few more days! I am thrilled by the submissions that
have already been received and eagerly await the poems that are to come. These contests cover a
wide breadth of themes and forms. From haiku to narrative verse—on themes of love, courage, and
the current state of our world—there is something for every poet among us to speak to. This year we
are happy to add the Jean Williams Poetry of Disability, Disease, and Healing Award to our slate of
contests. The deadline for submission is January 12, 2023 and submitting to all contests (with the
exception of the Laureate contest) is free for all NCPS members. Full submission guidelines can be
found on our contest page and (I hope) a little inspiration can be found on our blog.
Happy submitting!
POETRY SUBMISSIONS CALENDAR UPDATE
Have you been wondering where to submit your poems for publication? Bill
Griffin invites you to explore his blog for the August update of the –
SUBMISSIONS CALENDAR – which he has compiled over the past several
years:
The table lists over 250 journals and contests, with web address or other
contact information, and indicates by month when submissions open and
close. It is available as a .PDF for download from GriffinPoetry.com.
Also featured is a "how to" page about formatting poetry on a WordPress site.
Bill adds frequently to the submissions calendar and posts an updated version
two or three times a year. Bill requests:
If you find any information in the table that has changed or is incorrect
please let me know! And please send your own favored journal information
for me to add to the next update to:
Every Friday Morning Bill Griffin posts at VERSE & IMAGE: new
microessays, nature photography, and poems by featured poets. Around 150
poets are indexed on the site’s home page, many from North Carolina and the
Southeast. In the past few weeks featured poets have included:
John Hoppenthaler
M. Scott Douglass
Ellen Bass
Linda Hogan
Maria Rouphail
Shuly Xóchitl Cawood
Denton Loving
Keri Gunter-Seymour
Pam Baggett
Rebecca Baggett
Please visit and leave a comment! https://GriffinPoetry.com
Join us Tuesday January 3rd at 7 p.m. to hear Nexus Poets' Fourth Annual Robert Golden Contest judge Jose Hernandez Diaz share some of his award-winning poetry.
The Featured Poet's reading will be followed by readings from winners of our contest and then our monthly Open Mic.
About Jose Hernandez Diaz
The Nexus Poets Fourth Annual Robert Golden Contest judge Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow.
He’s the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). His widely praised work appears in numerous publications including The Acentos Review, Bennington Review, Cincinnati Review, Electric Literature, Huizache, Iowa Review, The Nation, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, The Progressive, The Southeast Review, and Witness. He has served as poetry editor for Lunch Ticket.
He tweets at @JoseHernandezDz.
He said this about his latest book The Fire Eater, “…dragons in my view are thought of as mighty and majestic, while coyotes are thought of as a bit of a scavenger/sly species. This man, in the mirror, sees himself in both species/beasts, simultaneously.”
About the event
This event is held in person meeting and simultaneously broadcast on Zoom.
The in-person event is at 308 Meadows Street in New Bern, NC. There's plenty of free parking and the building is handicap accessible.
If you'd like to read during the open-mic portion of the evening, please let us know by emailing us at nexus@nexuspoets.com. Before our event, please read our open-mic guidelines HERE.
Our monthly First-Tuesday is a free public event that meets at the New Bern Unitarian Fellowship. Donations are accepted to help pay for the space. We'll pass the hat at the in-person event, and donations are accepted via our website (link below).
This event is sponsored by Nexus Poets, a collective which has promoted poets and poetry in Eastern North Carolina since 2014.
Additional Zoom info if needed:
Topic: January 3 Nexus Poets Open Mic
Time: Jan 3, 2023 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Carrboro Events January 21- Poetry Writing Workshop
Unearthing Ourselves!
A 1-hour poetry writing workshop with Carrboro Poet Laureate Liza Wolff-Francis, 10:30-11:30 am- Town Hall Room 110
Stop by to write.
January 28- Poets’ Party and Reading at Carrboro Century Center 6:00-8:00 pm.
The Poet’s Council invites you to celebrate the poet laureate program in Carrboro, honoring Fred Joiner, whose term as Carrboro Poet Laureate ends at the end of December 2022. We welcome Liza Wolff-Francis, who will serve as Carrboro Poet Laureate beginning in 2023. Other poet laureates will read as well.
The Flyleaf Poetry Series returns on January 15, 2023,
from 2:30 to 4:00 pm at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.
Stan Absher will read from Skating Rough Ground (Kelsay Books, 2022)
and Janis Harrington will read from How to Cut a Woman in Half (Able Muse Press, 2022),
followed by an Open Mic.
.
Come early to sign up for the Open Mic, chat with poets, browse the bookstore, and get yourself a good seat.
Here is our lineup for the next 3 months:
January 15
Stan Absher & Janis Harrington
February 12
Molly Rice & Joe Mills
March 12
Chapman Hood Frazier & Maria Rouphail
Flyleaf Books ~ 752 MLK Jr. Blvd ~ Chapel Hill, NC. 27514
North Carolina Poetry Society January Reading at McIntyre’s Books in Pittsboro
Cheryl Wilder and Earl Carlton Huband
Cheryl Wilder’s collection, Anything That Happens, a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection (Press 53), received Second Finalist in the Poetry Society of Virginia Award and Honorable Mention in the Brockman-Campbell Award. Co-founder of Waterwheel Review and Burlington Writers Club president, Cheryl received the 2023 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Support Grant.
Earl Carlton Huband is the author of The Innocence of Education [Longleaf Press, 2018] and In the Coral Reef of the Market [Main Street Rag Publishing, 2020]. The latter won the 2021 Peace Corps Writers Best Book of Poetry Award. Both books are based on Huband’s volunteer experiences in the Sultanate of Oman.
Event date:
Sunday, January 29, 2023 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Event address:
220 Market Street
Fearrington Village, NC 27312
Joan Barasovska presents ORANGE TULIPS with Chris Abbate and Sherry Siddall
Thursday, January 5, 2023 - Signing Line at 5:30 pm, Talk begins at 6:00 pm Flyleaf will offer seating for up to 75 in-person guests, with priority access given to folks who purchase the book. Masks recommended.
Orange Tulips is a story, told in narrative lyric poetry, of a young woman’s protracted struggle with mental illness and her eventual hard-won recovery. Victoria Reynolds writes, “These are poems that relish ‘the ecstatic lift/of strength and artifice,’ that poetry-making contributes to the difficult work of becoming who we are.
Joan Barasovska lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She will host a poetry series at McIntyre’s Books in 2023 and serves on the Board of the North Carolina Poetry Society. For thirty-five years, Joan has been an academic therapist in private practice. Her poems appeared in Kakalak, San Pedro River Review, Flying South, Crossing the Rift, Red Fez, Speckled Trout Review, Main Street Rag, among other journals and anthologies. In 2020 Joan was nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Joan is the author of Birthing Age (Finishing Line Press, 2018), Carrying Clare (Main Street Rag, 2022), and Orange Tulips (Redhawk Publications, 2022).
Chris Abbate's poems have appeared in numerous journals including Connecticut River Review, Cider Press Review, and Comstock Review. He is a two-time nominee for a Pushcart Prize, has been nominated for a Best of the Net award, and has received awards in the Nazim Hikmet and North Carolina Poetry Society poetry contests. His poetry has also been featured on Verse Daily. His first book, Talk About God, was published by Main Street Rag in 2017. His full-length collection, Words for Flying, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2022. Visit him at chrisabbate.com
Sherry Siddall wrote poetry as a child, and studied creative writing at Oberlin College as an undergrad. She continued to write sporadically while raising a family and working. In the last ten years she has been able to re-engage with poetry with intention and the support of a wide and generous community of fellow poets. Her work has appeared in Tar River Poetry, Kakalak, Pinesong, Poetry in Plain Sight and elsewhere, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sweet Land, published by Finishing Line Press, is her first book.
Event date:
Thursday, January 5, 2023 - 5:30-7:00 pm Event address:
752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
PIEDMONT TRIAD EVENTS
Creativity Spark for the New Year — Cathy Pickens
What better time to start that new project? Or return to something you put on a shelf? Or explore a new creative outlet? Wondering how to start? Or if you’re headed in the right direction? Creativity is not a mysterious gift, but a discipline that can be developed. This workshop offers time-tested techniques to predictably tap into your own creativity and recharge your creative work. Participants will receive a copy of Cathy’s book, CREATE: Develop Your Own Creative Process. This class will focus on how to develop your own projects.
Virtual via Zoom | Thursday, January 12 | 6:00 - 8:00 pm. Register
Eco-Poetry — Joseph Bathanti — 6 SPACES LEFT!
Charlotte Lit @ hygge Belmont | Wednesday, January 25 | 6:00 - 8:00 pm
WESTERN NC EVENTS
Live Stream | Poetrio: Merle Bachman, David Ebenbach, Richard Tillinghast
Sunday, January 8, 2023 - 4:00pm
Join us for our monthly poetry event featuring three poets and coordinated by Mildred Barya. This month, we welcome Merle Bachman, David Ebenbach, and Richard Tillinghast. This is a free virtual event but registration is required.
Please click HERE to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and purchase the authors' books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop's. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you! Feel free to email info@malaprops.com with questions.
David Ebenbach is the author of nine books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction that include How to Mars, Miss Portland, Some Unimaginable Animal, and a new poetry collection from Orison Books, What's Left to Us by Evening. David lives with his family in Washington, DC, where he teaches creative writing at Georgetown University. For more, visit davidebenbach.com
How does one live in a world that is both beautiful and broken—a world of cherry blossoms and gun violence, fellowship and political enmity, plague and rebirth? What’s Left to Us by Evening, David Ebenbach’s unsparing and timely new poetry collection, examines the obligation—and privilege—of carrying it all. David Ebenbach’s poems are funny, engaging, kind, generous-spirited, moving, clever, even childlike. It’s almost easy to forget he’s writing again and again about a world-wide pandemic, a bitterly-contested election, earth-threatening climate change—in short, the apocalypse.
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Richard Tillinghast was born and raised in Memphis. After college at Sewanee, he did graduate work at Harvard. He’s the author of thirteen books of poetry and five of creative nonfiction. He has taught at Harvard, Berkeley, the College Program at San Quentin Prison, the University of Michigan, as well as at Trinity College Dublin and the Poets’ House in Ireland. He’s a founder and past Director of the Bear River Writers’ Conference in Northern Michigan. He currently lives in Hawaii and spends his summers in Sewanee, Tennessee. For more, visit http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rwtill/
Blue If Only I Could Tell You is a book of journeys and arrivals, of the many far and consequential places we might find ourselves… These are troubadour poems, wandering back in time and far in space, finding their tunes in a Southern childhood of farmland and fishing, in India, the American West, Hawaii, and Ireland, alert to “ghostings/ of rain” and to the astonishment of “apples falling through the Milky Way.” Tillinghast’s cadences feel deeply, richly, surprisingly true to life. And abundant in the heart’s intelligence. Blue If Only I Could Tell You won The White Pine Press Poetry prize.
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Merle Lyn Bachman grew up in Albany, New York, the granddaughter of Yiddish-speaking immigrants. A poet who delights in writing prose and exploring the arbitrary boundaries between genres, Bachman has published four poetry books as well as poems and other writing in many journals including Talisman, Five Fingers Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Thank You for Being: A Poet’s Memoir of Home was published by Wet Cement Press. Still Glimmering, her translation of selected poems by the Yiddish poet Rosa Nevadovska, is forthcoming from Ben Yehuda Press in 2023. For more, visit https://www.merlebachman.com
Working from a rich personal archive of letters, journals, and poems, Bachman carries us into the questing journey of being a poet and a woman; what she calls, “A slender proposition that supports a glittering weight.” Thank You for Being becomes as much a model for exploring our own life as it is the record of its particular poet-memoirist. As Bachman explores the archive of writing she has kept for decades and finds images and clues to what her life means and what writing means in her life, she suggests a process that might begin with the writing of a single poem but doesn’t end until “the words sink into a patch of ground”—or become a book like this one.
“To every prospective reader of As for Life, I would say, ‘Brace yourself. Do not avert your gaze. Here you will experience a revelation that will increase your understanding.’ Marilyn McVicker does not countenance equivocation in herself or others. This may be the most forthcoming volume of poetry I have ever read. Be prepared.”
—Fred Chappell, N.C. Poet Laureate, 1997-2002
Marilyn McVicker had her first poem published in 1980. Her poetry has been most recently published in Kakalak, Kaleidoscope, The Healing Muse, Earth’s Daughters, Front Porch Review, Red Clay Review, Speckled Trout Review, Wordgathering, Breath & Shadow, and Red Headed Stepchild. Her non-fiction book, Sauna Detoxification Therapy, was published by McFarland & Co. in 1997, and her poetry chapbook, Some Shimmer of You, by Finishing Line Press, in 2014. In 2020, she received an Honorable Mention for her full-length poetry manuscript, As for Life, through North Carolina Poetry Society’s Lena M. Shull Book Contest. She has read her poetry at numerous festivals, bookstores, colleges, libraries, and other venues. Marilyn’s fascination with words and self-expression stems from her previous career as a solo flutist and music educator. She retired to a remote cove in the rural mountains of western North Carolina in 1997.
Available for purchase:
https://redhawkpublications.com/As-For-Life-A-memoir-in-poetry-exploring-the-isolation-&-loss-of-chronic-illness-p486443263
Poet Maureen Sherbondy has had enough. Her eleventh collection, Lines in Opposition, explores our need to set limits in times of conflict and confusion. These poems of defiance range from the artistic to the political to the familial, from Basho to Godot, Gretel to Ashbery, the Rockettes to Bubble Yum. At times wry and whimsical, at other times acutely serious, Sherbondy's poems testify to the importance of knowing when and how to draw the line.
The thrill of reading Orange Tulips is multi-dimensional: Each poem stands on its own, but each participates in the unfolding narrative. Here are rage and grief, loss and pure bewilderment, enacted through a lens of honesty and love. Orange Tulips is a significant achievement.
—Michael Hettich, author of Bluer and More Vast, To Start an Orchard, The Mica Mine
“Maria Rouphail’s eye is unflinching yet her voice is forgiving as she recalls the lyric memories of a family’s history of trauma. From the title poem that takes the reader to “a dark river hauling out of a glacier in Tibet, / all dragon sheen and muscle moving” to “an orange sky” over LA where “freeways writhe like ropes of fire,” Maria Rouphail explores the landscapes of longing and loss between mothers and daughters. The poems are like trees that bloom and burn with each turn of the page."
–Beth Copeland, author of Blue Honey, recipient of the 2017 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize.
Maria Rouphail is the 2022 winner of NCPS’s Pinesong Awards Poet Laureate Contest.
A boy breaks out of childhood into strangeness. An adoring couple find themselves locked in struggle with each other. A pair of lifelong partners confront cancer and on-coming death. A father dreams of and trembles for the future of his infant son. These poems draw us into the worlds of these people. The book’s protean, searchlight verse illuminates their—and our—inner lives. It puts to shame just about every book of poems I’ve come across in the past five or ten years. Anywhere. By anybody. Its poems are fresh, taut. And resistant to facile reading, They make you work.
--Clark Holtzman, poet, song-writer, author of The Shepherd’s Calendar
www.horseandbuggypress.com/bookstore
“I am in awe of Katherine Soniat’s latest collection, Polishing the GlassStorm. Her poetic energies and talents are many and fierce – mystery, imagination, story, knowledge, music and wonder. Here, the narrator wings us through birth, fear, sorrow, loss (including the loss of her own twin at birth) – as she says, ‘in love as I am with absence’ – as generations unfold and fold, in image and story. Some of those stories are ‘soft ones, with feathers at the bottom,’ told ‘with the island nature of the mind.’ Others are so tactile and gripping, they were surely written with the narrator’s bare knuckles or the bear’s ‘warm saliva,’ leaving the reader ‘freshly skinned and slick… .’ This collection captivates, energizes and charms. I’ll return to it again and again.”
—Dannye Romine Powell, author of In the Sunroomwith Raymond Carver
In this stunning sequence of sonnets—a sequence that reads like a novel—Janis Harrington spins a narrative of intergenerational family tragedy, but also of sisterly devotion and resilience. The whole sweep of it is so compelling that once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. How to Cut aWoman in Half takes the reader through shock and grief and then, very subtly and tenderly, back from the edge of an abyss. —Cecilia Woloch, author of Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem and Earth
Posters from past years of the Poetry in Plain Sight program are still available! $10 for the first two posters and $1 for each additional poster up to 10. Contact Sam Barbee at ncps.pips.sb@gmail.com for an up-to-date count and list of posters.
NCPS Dues Scholarship Program
A member or potential new member can write to Joan Barasovska, Sr. VP of Membership, at msjoan9@gmail.com to ask about obtaining a dues scholarship.
Scholarships are funded by member donations. Confidentiality is central to this program. If you are on a limited income and paying NCPS dues presents a hardship, or you know a poet who would benefit from joining but is held back by tight finances, please write to Joan at msjoan9@gmail.com.
If you are interested in being added to the list of dues sponsors, write to Bill Griffin, ewgryphon@aol.com. You would not be asked to pay until a scholarship is requested.
NCPS Dues Reminder
Quarterly meetings, readings, workshops, contests, fellowships, publications, and collaborations keep the North Carolina poetry community connected and vibrant. We invite you to renew your involvement and take advantage of all that the NCPS offers its members. During this season of online meetings and readings we have continued our quarterly meetings on Zoom, allowing members from all locations, including out of state, to attend virtually.
While dues were once paid in May, we have converted to a simpler rolling system. The day your payment to renew membership is recorded will become your new due date the following year. Your due date is on the mailing label of your copies of Pine Whispers, the paper newsletter.
There are two ways to pay the $30 annual dues ($10 for students): Pay by check (for mailing address click on link below for downloadable form); PayPal, either in a one-time payment (no need for a PayPal account to use your credit card), or the easy option of an automatic annual payment with a PayPal account. The link below will guide you.
Here is the link to the NCPS website Membership page. Please explore the entire website and see what’s new!
If you have questions about membership, please write to Joan Barasovska at msjoan9@gmail.com.
Copies of the 2022 Pinesong Anthology Available
If you would like to receive a copy of the newly published 2022 Pinesong, the anthology of winning poetry from the Pinesong Awards contests, please write to Joan at msjoan9@gmail.com. There will be no charge for mailing.
This offer is for members in good standing. If you're uncertain about your dues status, Joan can help you.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
by Robert Frost This poem is in the public domain.
The North Carolina Poetry Society is an inclusive, welcoming community that does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, political preference, or any other category that has been used to divide human beings from each other and the natural world. We value diverse voices and varieties of expression.
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