College of the Ouachitas

Yesterday, at the College of the Ouachitas in Malvern, I visited with a creative writing class and then read from Underwater Panther outside in the Atrium. It couldn’t have been a more beautiful day, in terms of place or people. My old friend and colleague Jason Hancock and new friend and fellow artist Tricia Baar and the COTO library helped me feel at home, and the students were engaging and open. To read by climbing roses in April in Arkansas while a phoebe repeats its name–it doesn’t get any better than that.

What is your passion? I asked each student in the class. They seemed comfortable in their skin in a way that enabled them consider this question better than I could when I started in the same class back in the day. The box that the world and I took turns putting me in (be a good girl, be seen not heard, know your place) is something that I still see.  But art breaks down walls, and I’m thankful.

With appreciation to COTO for celebrating the power of words to move us in a good way.

 

 

 

Harding University

 

Yesterday my writing took me to Harding University. I met with an Intro to Poetry class in the morning, visited with students and faculty over pizza, and read in Cone Chapel in the late afternoon. This marks my third visit to Harding, and it was as beautiful as ever, maybe even more so, not only because I was teaching and reading in azaleas and dogwoods, but I was honored to be introduced by Terry Engel as a friend of its English Department.

Between events, I sat out on campus, read a little, and watched the world go by. A student who couldn’t come to my reading took the time to find and talk with me.

Oftentimes as I prepare for events like these, I think of what I want to say, but in this visit, I realized I was thinking more of what Harding has been saying to me. The students were fun, funny, curious, and kind. Nick Boone has always had a knack of encouraging me to take myself seriously as a writer at the exact moments I doubted my work. So yesterday was the first time I felt comfortable to read from each of my three books, Fear Nothing of the Future or the Past, with a title that speaks for itself; Underwater Panther, with its look at the past we’ve inherited; and Ore Horizon, with its question, when our environment is being damaged, both our natural world and how we deal with each other as people, what do we do?

All this is colored with my deepening sense of mourning, as the first anniversary of my father’s passing draws near. But something my husband said to me weeks ago has stuck in my mind: some people approach the world from a foundation of fear. They cling to the past because they feel frightened. But some people approach the world from a place of hope. They feel scared, too, but they look to the past to help create new ways to move forward to something better. Poetry is part of such hope, as are the people and places who celebrate it.

With thanks to Harding for a good day.

 

 

Delta Visual Arts Show

This spring, I’m grateful to be part of three events. The first is this Saturday, February 25, the Delta Visual Arts Show in Newport, Arkansas.

This show focuses on the Delta’s significance and its potential. It isn’t about going back. It’s about moving forward. The Blue Bridge Center for the Delta Arts project is a collaboration between an economic development commission and an arts council that recognizes the powerful role that the arts can play in a region’s renewal.

The show includes over 180 artists of every type in booths, solo shows, competitions, workshops, presentations, performances, and readings. There will be activities for adults and children, and the downtown itself is part of the action as art fills its buildings. You’ll find me with Underwater Panther and Fear Nothing of the Future or the Past in the W.A. Billingsley Memorial Jackson County Library with more than other twenty authors in the Authors’ Corner.

A writer I look forward to seeing again is Annie England Noblin. We met when I read at ASU-Mountain Home, where she teaches. Her book is the perfectly titled Sit! Stay! Speak! and she’ll be reading at noon. My favorite character in her book is the Delta itself. She captures how it testifies in a way that no one can ignore.

Come by and enjoy this day.

Arkansas Review

A review of my book Underwater Panther appears in the latest Arkansas Review, along with my review of A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems by Patricia Spears Jones. Many thanks to Marck Beggs for his words on my work, as well as to Patricia Spears Jones for the fire of her collection. Let there be no doubt that Arkansas yields some of the best literary company in the world.

 

 

Southern Festival of Books

The last event this fall in celebration of Underwater Panther takes me to Nashville, Tennessee, to the Southern Festival of Books this weekend.

Our panel is titled “Light in Darkness,” and I’ve thought a lot about that phrase. No matter where we come from, we all know how darkness can make us feel small.

Near Nashville is Stones River National Battlefield and Murfreesboro. Two of my grandfather’s great-uncles died there within five days of each other in February 1863. They were twins, about 19 or 20 years old.

We don’t know much about them, and we’ll never know what motivated them to serve the Union. But idealism did run high in our family. This branch had owned slaves in Delaware, but they left that behind when they moved to Illinois in the 1830s. The twins’ big brother, my greater-grandfather, was a Baptist minister full of the Word.

When I think of light in darkness, in this place, I can’t help but think of these two young men, and I am encouraged to think past death, and grief, where I have been struggling, to the gift of possibilities that they bequeathed me. This, of course, is only a very small part of a much larger picture.

We inherit the world created by the people before us. Our children inherit the world we are creating now.

When I was little and my father tucked me in, he would say, “Good night, sleep tight. Wake up bright in the morning light, to do with right, with all your might,” and he would pause, and I would say, “with everybody.” By definition, light makes darkness go away.

Saturday, 4:30 p.m. in the Nashville Public Library, I’ll be part of this panel with the fantastic Christina Stoddard and John C. Mannone. Humanities Tennessee works to bring together a wide variety of writers from across the country for this festival. Look over the list here and see what you might enjoy.

Henderson State University

The second event in celebration of Underwater Panther this fall is tomorrow at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia.

When my book went into production, my editor Susan Swartwout gave me the chance to choose the image for the cover, and I immediately thought of the work of my former colleague Katherine Strause. Kathy invited me to look through her pieces to see what we might use, and in time we settled on Bow and Arrow. I’ve come to realize, in part as I reflected on what drew me to this piece, that this book is the story of a woman taking aim.

Kathy and I wanted to keep the good stuff going, so last winter, I sent her the first poem from each section of the book as well as its first poem, and her painting students used them as inspiration for six pieces.

So Kathy is going to display those paintings, and I’m going to share those poems. She will display bring some of her own paintings as well, as will another artist Tricia Baar, who will share her paintings and poetry.

With thanks to another artist Marck Beggs and the HSU Ellis College Margin of Excellence, this Poetry & Painting Coffeehouse will take place at 6 p.m., Tuesday, September 13, on the Arkansas Hall Main Stage.

 

 

 

Mid-South Book Festival

Underwater Panther has been in the world a year now, and I have three events to celebrate it this fall. The first is the Mid-South Book Festival in Memphis this weekend.

I’ve had the chance to read in Memphis twice before, first at a launch for The Pinch and then a few years later in the Impossible Language Poetry series, so returning feels friendly. And that’s good, because a week after my last reading this spring, my father passed away as I sat by his side.

Alzheimers was so horrible, I thought grieving his death would be easier. People have been more gentle to me about this than I’ve been to myself. I’ve found myself trying to handle grief as I’ve approached any challenge in my life: identify the steps to master the situation; do what needs to be done well and ahead of schedule; check that off and move on. But grieving doesn’t work that way.

So I find myself feeling lost, which isn’t the best way to feel when thinking of speaking in front of a group of people. But then again maybe it is. Art, and love, those things don’t eliminate chaos. They just illuminate beauty so that if we look, for a brief moment, we might understand.

Saturday at 1 p.m., I’ll be discussing a few poems from Underwater Panther in a session called “The Real Narrative,” with George Hodgman, Daniel Connolly, and Cathryn J. Prince, moderated by John Bensko, a diverse panel offering a lot of possibility.

Literacy Mid-South has worked to cultivate a wide variety for this festival. Check out all the authors here and enjoy.

Arkansas Literary Festival

Tomorrow finds me in Little Rock at the Arkansas Literary Festival. I’ve been there in the past leading workshops and serving on panels, but the 2016 Festival is particularly special, not only because I’ll be reading as part of two sessions, but because this year my name appears on the new Readers’ Map of Arkansas.

When I first came here, Arkansas was known as the Land of Opportunity. This has come true in ways I never would have dared to dream. I am thankful and humbled.

At 10 a.m., I’ll be reading from Underwater Panther in a session called “Mississippi Pinocchio in Jaguar Pajamas” with Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis and George David Clark, moderated by Heather K. Hummel of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and then at 11:30 a.m., I’ll be reading from Fear Nothing of the Future or the Past in a session called “On the Map” in celebration of the Readers’ Map of Arkansas with Tyrone Jaeger and Suzi Parker, moderated by Hope Coulter of Hendrix College.

The Central Arkansas Library System has done a great job putting together a great festival. Check out full schedule here and see the opportunities you might find!

 

UACCM

Tomorrow finds me at the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton, one of my favorite campuses to visit. I’ve been there through the years, as faculty or department chair or writer, always in the spring. This time my friend Lyndsey Daniel has invited me to talk about publishing and Underwater Panther with her creative writing class. UACCM is a bright, welcoming place, and I look forward to this with joy and a sense of renewal.

This trip comes on the heels of good news, which I can only vaguely explain. This year has been one of change and realization and hard challenges. Friends and family have given me so much, even when they didn’t know how much I needed. Before walking into UAMS yesterday, I reread the Poem of the Day that had shown up in my inbox, Lucille Clifton’s “blessing the boats“:

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear…

 

Encouragement is a word I’ve come to realize more fully: to fill someone with courage. Not meaning that the fear is gone, or even the problem itself, but that you empower people with the faith that they can handle challenges, and handle them well. With love, all things are possible. You help them know that everything will be okay.

And it will be.

 

 

ArkaText Literary Festival

It’s an early spring, and I have a few events planned to continue the celebration of Underwater Panther. Tomorrow, March 8, takes me to the ArkaText Literary Festival, hosted by the University of Central Arkansas Department of Writing, with a craft talk from 11-11:50 a.m. and a reading from  1:40-2:30 p.m.

These past months have been the hardest in my life. To say that my father is dying sounds too simple for what is happening. What makes it harder to explain is that while this time is painful, it has also been rich, when the simplest acts of kindness are realized as the gifts that they have always been, and the love of friends and family evolves and deepens.

To share Underwater Panther in this hard time sometimes makes me feel upset. It isn’t fair that I don’t get to enjoy my dream coming true. Instead I’m mourning that my father doesn’t know me anymore, just when I thought I’d finally figured it all out. Nothing makes much sense anymore, and a book really doesn’t seem to matter. But as I look back through the book, I remember what the underwater panther means: change and disorder, a junction between one world and another. Of course that threshold is a hard one.

To be able to be part of a festival that celebrates the heart and art of writing is a wonderful gift, and I appreciate my friend Sandy Longhorn and everyone at UCA for welcoming me there.