2013 MFA Index: Further Reading
A comprehensive article about how we compiled the 2013 MFA Index of full- and low-residency programs, featured in the September/October 2012 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Genre: Poetry
Seattle’s Karen Finneyfrock: The Spider at the Center of a Web
Karen Finneyfrock is a poet, novelist, and teaching artist in Seattle, Washington. Her second book of poems, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, was published by Write Bloody in 2010. Her young adult novel, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door, is forthcoming from Viking Children’s Books in 2013. She is a former writer-in-residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and teaches for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers-in-the-Schools. Last spring, P&W supported her reading with the Seattle Rock Orchestra.
What are your reading dos?
I try to remind myself that a show is primarily for the audience and not for me. When I think of the audience member's experience, it allows me to be less fixated on my own nervousness or a myopic concern for my work. I remind myself that stage fright is essentially selfish, and I can focus on connecting with the listener instead.
What are your reading don’ts?
I think of the idiom, "Never wear a hat that has more personality than you do." Never wear an outfit that will upstage you or shoes that might cause you to trip. With that said, I like to dress like I'm ready to be seen. My other big don't is: Don't exceed the time limit you've been given. Time your work and be respectful to organizers and audience.
How do you prepare for a reading?
If I'm performing poetry, I like to rehearse late at night or early in the morning before I even get out of bed. I envision myself on the stage, and I run through everything I will say, even my banter between poems. Then, I run my pieces again in the shower. If I'm reading prose, I like to read through the selection and consider the context the audience will need about the piece to appreciate it the most. I make bullet points to remember what I want to say to the audience, but I never read from a script when I'm speaking about the work or to the crowd.
What’s your crowd-pleaser, and why does it work?
My best crowd-pleaser works because it is imagistic, literal, and uplifting at the end. I wouldn't want this for all of my poems, and I do seek to challenge audience members with pieces that create discomfort, but I like to leave people feeling good. I think of Shakespeare playing to all levels of the house. I want some pieces that every listener—even those new to poetry or new to abstract work—can say, "I got it," after hearing.
What was it like to perform with the Seattle Rock Orchestra?
Performing with a rock orchestra is exactly as cool as it sounds. First, composer John Teske met with me and listened to my poem, then he created an original, experimental score, which included vocalizations as well as instrumental noise. For example, as my poem started, "Even the wet floor of the city bus...," musicians made slurping noises behind me. John's concept was out of the box and stretched the idea of what music and poetry can sound like together. It avoided the cliché of pretty words with some nice stringed instruments playing and took it to the place a rock orchestra should go.
Standing on stage surrounded by a group of musicians, all attuned to my performance, was like being the spider at the center of an artistically sensitive web. I got the feeling they were prepared to follow me wherever I was going to go.
Photo: Karen Finneyfrock. Credit: Inti St. Clair
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Seattle is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Willow Books Launches New Literature Awards
Willow Books is currently accepting submissions for its first annual Literature Awards. A prize of $2,000 will be given for a book-length work of literary prose, and a prize of $1,000 will be given for a full-length collection of poetry. The two winning manuscripts will be published in spring 2013 by Willow Books.
The Willow Books Literature Awards are given to United States writers from culturally diverse backgrounds. “Our mission is to develop, publish, and promote writers typically underrepresented in the market,” the press’s website states. Ten finalists will be announced on January 21, 2013, and the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony and reading in Chicago later in the spring. The remaining eight finalists will have selections of their work published in an e-book anthology. All finalists for the awards are expected to attend the ceremony and assist in future online publicity for the press.
Judges for the poetry prize include poets John Murillo, Ching-in Chen, and Naomi Ayala; judges for the prize in literary prose include fiction and nonfiction writers Pauline Kaldas, Latha Viswanathan, and Ana-Maurine Lara.
“We are excited about our new competition and the caliber of our judges,” says Randall Horton, editor of Willow Books. “We are also planning to host workshops during the awards weekend, so watch for updates.”
Poets may submit three copies of a collection between 50 and 125 pages, along with a $25 entry fee; prose writers may submit three copies of a novel, short story collection, memoir, or essay collection (totaling no more than 100,000 words), along with a $30 entry fee. The deadline for submissions is October 1. Submissions are accepted via postal mail only.
Willow Books, established in 2007 as an imprint of the Detroit-based Aquarius Books, publishes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Some of the press’s recent authors include Tara Betts, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Krista Franklin, and Tony Medina.
Willow also partners with the Cave Canem Foundation to publish the biennial Cave Canem Anthology, a collection of poetry by Cave Canem faculty and fellows.
For the required entry form and complete submissions guidelines for the Literary Awards, and for more information about Willow Books, visit their website.
A Rose by Any Other Name
During the next week, take note of the various flora and fauna you encounter. Look through classification books or search online for the precise names for the animals, birds, and plants you’ve observed. Choose the most sonorous names and include two in your next poem.
Rochelle Spencer on Location, Location, Location
Fiction writer and literary organizer Rochelle Spencer blogs about P&W–funded events at unexpected venues. She teaches at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York, and is the author of the e-book Ella Jones and Her Magical Vagina.
A poetry reading in a hair salon? Why not?
Poetry happens everywhere, and sometimes experiencing those flashes of imagination can be just what we need to make it through the day.
When my best friend Stacia Sh
abazz revealed to me her dream of using the arts to do something positive for the Atlanta community, I told her about the Poets & Writers Readings/Workshops program. Stacia is the owner of 32nbelow.com, an online clothing store with the mission of “raising self awareness in low-income communities.” 32nbelow.com also sponsors literary events with the help of P&W funding. Some of Shabazz's most memorable readings have taken place in a nightclub (Compound), a clothing store (Select Menswear Boutique), a conference center (Atlanta Association of Black Cardiologists Conference Center), and a hair salon (Roots International Hair Salon).
Stacia’s events don’t have the muted atmosphere you sometimes find at an academic reading; at 32nbelow readings, you hear cheers when a favorite poet “blesses the mic,” and you see audience members nod their heads to a poet’s voice like they’re listening to a favorite song. Stacia attributes her successful readings to finding poets who speak to the audience’s needs: “Most of the spoken-word artists speak about love or politics—two things that usually hold people’s attention.”
I lived in Atlanta, where Stacia’s readings are held, for five years, but I was born in Detroit, and many Detroiters know about a popular reading series that occurs in an unusual place: a church. Writer L. Bush, the host/producer of Spirit Spit, says that the "gothic atmosphere" of the church creates an "almost mystical" feeling for both the audience and the performers. And, after readings, audience members have come up to Writer “and told [him] how the reading had brought them to tears—or inspired them to write something on the spot or sign-up for open mic, which they had never expected to do."
Life is crazy, chaotic. As a graduate student, college instructor, and fiction writer, I sometimes feel guilty for even going to the bathroom. But poetry in unexpected places is one of life’s little pleasures. It reminds us of why we’re here.
Photo: Stacia Shabazz. Credit: Issan Otto.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Atlanta and Detroit is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Anna Blume
Caption:
Inspired by the poem "An Anna Blume," written in 1919 by German artist Kurt Schwitters, this short film by Vessela Dantcheva explores the ways in which "lust and ingestion, disguised in love, drive the two characters to an end where love turns to be a very lonesome and strange place."
Genre:
VCCA Opens 2013 Wachtmeister Award in Poetry
The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) is currently accepting applications for the 2013 Wachtmeister Award. The biennial prize, which is offered in alternating genres, will be given this year to a poet.
The award includes a fully funded residency of up to thirty days at VCCA, a retreat for writers, visual artists, and composers located on a 450-acre estate at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, approximately sixty miles south of Charlottesville. The winner will also receive a $1,000 honorarium and travel reimbursement of up to $750. The total value of the award, which includes a private bedroom, private workspace, and three meals a day, is $7,150.
Applicants for the Wachtmeister Award must have worked professionally for the previous fifteen years, and must have published at least two full-length poetry collections. Applicants should submit three copies of up to five poems (totaling no more than ten pages), the application form, and curriculum vitae, along with a brief biography and statement of purpose, by September 30. Poets who have not previously attended VCCA are eligible.
Originally called the VCCA Award for Excellence, the Wachtmeister Award is endowed by VCCA board member Linda Wachtmeister and is administered by the VCCA Fellows Council. The award is given to support writers, visual artists, and composers whose achievements in the arts are widely recognized.
Poet and fiction writer Ha Jin, whose most recent book is the short story collection A Good Fall (Pantheon, 2009), last received the Wachtmeister Award in writing in 2004. The author of six novels, four short story collections, and four books of poetry, Jin has received the National Book Award, a PEN/Faulkner Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Open year-round, the VCCA offers residencies of two weeks to two months and accommodates twenty-five artists at a time. Residents may also use the facilities of nearby Sweet Briar College. Since its founding in 1971 by writers Elizabeth Coles Langhorne and Nancy Hale, over 4,000 writers, artists, and composers have attended residencies at VCCA.
For an application form and complete guidelines, or for more information about residencies at VCCA, visit the website.
New Poetry Prize Named for Margaret Atwood
The Canadian social reading website Wattpad has named its new poetry awards for author and literary icon Margaret Atwood. The first annual Attys, which include a grand prize of $1,000, will be given for a group of ten poems. Other prizes will include feedback sessions with Atwood and the chance to be a character in the Man Booker Prize-winning author’s next novel.
“I'm very honoured to have [the prize] named after me,” Atwood wrote in a message to entrants on the contest website. “Poetry is at the core of each language, and language itself is at the core of our humanity.”
Wattpad is a Toronto-based digital platform for writers and readers to share new creative work. According to its mission, Wattpad offers a “creative, welcoming, and completely free community to connect with readers from around the world. Writers can build an engaged fan base, share their work with a huge audience, and receive instant feedback on their stories.”
The contest, sponsored in part by the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, aims to further that mission by celebrating digital-first poetry, which may be read, shared, and even submitted from anywhere. “We anticipate that some entries will be written on mobile devices,” said Allen Lau, Wattpad’s cofounder. “We want to create an opportunity for poets to share their work and for audiences to discover the genre, [and we] are excited to see how the world connects over poetry.”
Atwood, who joined Wattpad's community of nine million writers and readers in June, has three new poems posted on the website. “May you enjoy composing your own poems, and enjoy reading the poems of others,” she wrote. “These are very ancient pleasures; by sharing in them, you are sharing in our own deep history.”
Poets should submit ten poems, each which demonstrates a different poetic form. Submissions will be accepted through the Wattpad website until October 31.
In the video below, Atwood discusses her creative process with the folks of Big Think.
Bill Murray Reads Wallace Stevens
Caption:
Actor Bill Murray read two poems by Wallace Stevens at Bubby's Brooklyn as part of Poets House's seventeenth annual Poetry Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge last month.
Genre:
Back Then
In his poem “Refrigerator, 1957” (originally published in the New Yorker, July 28, 1997), Thomas Lux writes about a jar of “lit-from-within red” maraschino cherries that, as a boy, he never ate from. Write a poem about something that you longed for when you were younger, but was always off-limits.
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