Rebecca Siegel

November 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

The Dipper - November 2020

Rebecca Siegel

November 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

"The Dipper" is our monthly newsletter, where we highlight readings, events, calls for submission, and other literary-related news for the coming month. If you have news or events to share, let us know!

November News

Thank you to everyone who attended Sierra Crane Murdoch’s talk in October. What a wonderful night! A huge thanks to Allie Levy of Still North Books for hosting via Crowdcast and to Angela Evancie of Brave Little State for interviewing Sierra. If you missed the event, you can still catch the replay. Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Sierra’s fantastic book, Yellow Bird.

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In case you missed them, in October we added three new interviews to our blog with writers whose recently released books we really love.

First, we welcomed a guest interviewer: poet, teacher and bookstore owner, Rena Mosteirin, who interviewed poet Alexandria Hall about her evocative debut poetry collection, Field Music (Ecco, October 6), which won the 2019 National Poetry Series award selected by Rosanna Warren. In their discussion, Alexandria and Rena talk about the musical quality of the poems in Field Music, the influence of writing in Vermont, and the best writing advice Alexandria’s ever gotten in a workshop.

We also interviewed writer Meredith Hall about her first novel, Beneficence (Godine, October 20), a quiet, unputdownable novel that focuses on the Senters, a farming family in rural Maine over the course of many years. Reminiscent of Wendell Berry and Marilynne Robinson, Hall’s writing is truly beautiful. Read our interview with Meredith to learn how the Senter family came into being, the role of light in her book, and what books she’s really loved recently.

And we interviewed Elizabeth Powell about her latest collection of poetry, Atomizer (LSU Press, September 9), an expansive, honest, and often very funny exploration of life and love in the digital age. Whether she’s writing about the perils and humor of online dating, the insidious workings of capitalism in our cultural and political lives, or her childhood memories of perfume and fashion, these poems are intelligent, accessible, and riveting. Read our interview with Liz to learn how her posh Parisian stepmother provided her early education in perfume, and the connection between her grandfather and Robert Frost.

p.s. Did you know that you can see a list of everything we’ve ever published on our blog on our handy Blog Post Directory? You can easily find back issues of The Dipper, all of our interview posts, reading lists, Friday Reads suggestions, and more!

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After a very busy several months of virtual events and other projects, we’re looking forward to having a quiet end to the year. Among other things, fewer projects means we’ll have more time to spend reading our final Slow Club Book Club selection, Dionne Brand’s The Blue Clerk.

But never fear! We are busy making plans for next year. In fact, we’re getting ready to announce a new Constellation community writing project in early 2021. Newsletter subscribers will be the first to find out the details.

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As this newsletter goes to press, our thoughts, of course, are turning to the events of early November (please tell us you all have voted or have a voting plan), the imminent winter, and the coming holiday season, which, like the rest of 2020 will be oh-so-strange.

One thing we know we can do for ourselves, our loved ones, and our local community is to give each other beautiful, meaningful (and sometimes distracting) books we purchase from independent bookstores. In the coming weeks, we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite books by local authors, our favorite books of 2020, and some favorites of our local independent booksellers. Watch our Twitter and Instagram feeds in November to see these special holiday book shopping suggestions.

November’s Shooting Stars

A cool literary find from each of us to help light up your month!

If you haven’t seen the new Sundog Poetry Center website, I encourage you to take a look. The redesign is wonderful. While there, you can check out their new virtual event series, Two Poets, Two Books, and read more about the Vermont Book Award. —Shari

Do you know Emergence Magazine? I landed there accidentally by way of a series of links that led me to this magical multimedia poem by Forrest Gander and Katie Holten. And then the “Language Keepers” podcast series about the struggle for indigenous language survival in California caught my little linguistic eye, and, yeah, I think I’ll be spending some time there. —Rebecca

November Highlights

Christa Parravani will be in conversation virtually with author Merritt Tierce to discuss Parravani’s new memoir, Loved and Wanted, via Northshire Live on November 10 at 6:00 pm.

Poets Elizabeth Powell and Anna Maria Hong will read as part of the new Sundog Poetry virtual series, “Two Poets, Two Books,” on November 11 at 7:00 pm.

On November 12 at 4:45 pm, join poets Forrest Gander and Nicole Sealey for an online reading and Q&A via Dartmouth College’s Leslie Center for the Humanities.

Terese Mailhot is giving a virtual reading and craft talk through Vermont Studio Center on November 13 and 14, respectively. The reading will begin at 7:00 pm and the craft talk starts at 10:00 am. (Slow Club Book Club members, take note!)

Poets Chen Chen and Jennifer Militello read as part of the virtual Loom Poetry Series via Toadstool Bookshop on November 15 at 4:30 pm.

On November 19 at 7:00 pm, François S. Clemmons, who played Officer Clemmons on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, reads from his memoir as part of Virtual Bookstock 2020.

Shawn Wong and Miciah Bay Gault will participate in the Vermont College of Fine Arts Fall Reading Series on November 20 at 5:30 pm. The event includes a round-table discussion on publishing with several agents from Folio Literary Management.

Visit our calendar for detailed information about these events and more!

Worth a Listen

What a treat to hear Ocean Vuong read a new poem (“Beautiful Short Loser”) and talk about his writing practice on In the Studio.
Rumaan Alam talks to Christopher and Drew of So Many Damn Books about his latest novel, Leave the World Behind.
Ali Smith talks with Linn Ullmann about her seasonal quartet of novels on the How to Proceed podcast.

We're Looking Forward to These November Releases

Theorem, by Elizabeth Bradfield and Antonia Contro (Poetry Northwest Editions, November 1)
Aphasia, by Mauro Javier Cardenas (FSG, November 3)
To Be a Man, by Nicole Krauss (Harper, November 3)
The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans (Riverhead, November 10)
Loved and Wanted, by Christa Parravani (Henry Holt & Co, November 10)
Self-Portrait, by Celia Paul (NYRB, November 10)
The Sun Collective, by Charles Baxter (Pantheon, November 17)

Calls For Submission and Upcoming Deadlines

Bennington Unbound
November 15 to December 15
This four-week intensive online courses in fiction and nonfiction is geared toward current college and college-ready students considering an academic gap year or looking to supplement their current coursework. The courses are taught by Bennington’s award-winning graduate and undergraduate writing and literature faculty. Weekly live video class meetings foster an intimate seminar experience. Web-based discussion forums and unique multimedia resources extend the classroom community. All students will write both creatively and critically. Students earn one college credit per course.
Deadline: November 8 | Cost: $600/course | Details

New England Review
New England Review is open for nonfiction submissions and for their digital “Confluences” series. For nonfiction, NER accepts a broad range, including dramatic works, essays in translation, interpretive and personal essays, critical reassessments, cultural criticism, travel writing, and environmental writing. The word limit is 20,000. For “Confluences,” they are seeking brief essays (500 to 100 words) in response to a book, play, poem, film, painting, sculpture, building, or other work of art.
Deadline: November 15 | Details

Sunken Garden Chapbook Poetry Prize
Open to anyone writing in the English language, the Sunken Garden prize includes includes a cash award of $1,000 in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, 25 copies of the winning title, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion. Manuscripts are judged anonymously and all finalists will be considered for publication. This year’s final judge is Mark Bibbins.
Deadline: November 30 | Details

Bloodroot Literary Magazine
Bloodroot is now accepting new, unpublished poetry, fiction, and essays for its spring 2021 issue. Send a Word document including 3 to 5 pages of poetry or 10 to 12 pages of fiction and nonfiction. For anything outside that scope, like an experimental form or digital project, please send a one-page proposal and they will be in touch if we want to see more.
Deadline: December 15 | Details

The Dorset Prize for Poetry
Tupelo Press is seeking submissions of previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscripts. The prize is open to anyone writing in the English language. This year’s judge is Tyehimba Jess. The winner receives a $3000 cash prize and a week-long residency at MASS MoCA, in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, 20 copies of the winning title, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion.
Deadline: December 31 | Details

Vermont Writers’ Prize
The Vermont Writers’ Prize is accepting essays, short stories, plays, or poems on the subject of Vermont: its people, its places, its history, or its values—the choice is yours! Entries must be unpublished and 1,500 words or less. The Writers' Prize is open to all Vermont residents and students except for employees of Green Mountain Power and Vermont Magazine. Please submit only one entry.
Deadline: January 1 | Details

The Frost Place Chapbook Competition
The competition is open to any poet writing in English. The selected winner’s chapbook will be published by Bull City Press in the summer following the competition. The winner receives 10 complimentary copies (from a print run of 300), a $250 prize, full scholarship to attend the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place, including room and board, and gives a featured reading from the chapbook at the Seminar. $28 entry fee.
Deadline: January 5 | Details

Zig Zag Lit Mag Issue.10
Submissions are open for Issue.10 for those who live, labor, or loiter in Addison County, Vermont. Zig Zag accepts submissions in any genre and topic, including fiction, nonfiction, dramatic forms, and poetry. They also accept art. You can submit up to three pieces of writing and/or art.
Deadline: January 5 | Details

Crossroads Magazine
The independent, student-run magazine based out of Burlington, Vermont, accepts very short fiction and poetry, 300 words or fewer. Submissions should be in Word or typed directly into an email. No PDFs, please.
Deadline: rolling submissions | Details

Dartmouth Poet in Residence
The Frost Place’s Dartmouth Poet in Residence program is a six-to-eight-week residency in poet Robert Frost’s former farmhouse. The residency begins July 1 and ends August 15, and includes an award of $1,000 from The Frost Place and an award of $1,000 from Dartmouth College. The recipient of the Dartmouth Poet in Residence will have an opportunity to give a series of public readings across the region, including at Dartmouth College and The Frost Place.
Deadline: none given | Details

Green Mountains Review
GMR is accepting fiction and experimental and hybrid poems. The editors are open to a wide range of styles and subject matter. Please submit a cover letter and include up to 25 pages of prose or up to five poems. $3 submission fee.
Deadline: none given | Details

The Hopper
The environmental literary magazine from Green Writers Press, is accepting submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They are interested in work that offers new and different articulations of the human experience in nature, specifically nature writing that is psychologically honest about the environmental crisis and the impacts of mechanical modernity.
Deadline: none given | Details

Isele Magazine
Isele Magazine is seeking submissions of essays, fiction, poetry, art, and photography. You may submit up to 8,000 words of prose, six pages of poetry, or one long poem.
Deadline: rolling submissions | Details

Mount Island digital magazine
To focus on their mission of supporting rural LGBTQ+ and POC voices, most of the submission categories are open only to folks who identify as LGBTQ+ and/or POC and who currently live in or hail from a rural area. They do welcome “allies” who do not identify as LGBTQ+/POC/rural to submit in certain categories, such as interviews, reviews, and blog articles. When such categories are open for “ally submissions,” they are labeled clearly as such.
Deadline: open year-round | Details

Nightingale Review
Nightingale accepts and celebrate all types of literary creative expression from queer authors, including poetry, plays, general fiction, nonfiction essays, and book/movie/music reviews. Both established and unpublished authors welcome.
Deadline: none given | Details

Six-Word Quarantine Stories
Do you have a six-word story about your quarantine to share? Tell yours on social media with the hashtag #quarantinesix, and tag @vtartscouncil so they can share your story, too.
Deadline: none given | Details

Three By Five
Share a small moment—anonymously—that has altered the path of your life. Record it on a 3" x 5" card and mail it to PO Box 308, Etna, NH, 03750. Or, take a photo of your card and email it to .
Deadline: none | Details

Listening in Place Sound Archive
The Vermont Folklife Center invites you to send in recorded interviews and sounds of daily life in an effort to open hundreds of small windows into the experiences of Vermonters during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Vermont Folklife Center will make these recordings available on their website and social media to foster connection and sharing, and will also archive the recordings for posterity.
Deadline: none | Details

Writing the Land
Writing the Land is a collaboration between local land trusts and poets to help raise awareness for the preservation of land, ecosystems, and biodiversity. Poets and land trusts are being enrolled on a rolling basis. They are especially seeking under-represented poetic and environmental voices, but welcome all poets at any stage of their career and would like everyone to contribute to this project. If you are an interested poet, please fill out the information in the contact form on their website or email Lis McLaughlin at . You will need to submit a 50- to 75-word third-person bio, three pieces of work, and list which locations or regions you are willing to travel to.
Deadline: rolling submissions | Details

Upcoming Workshops and Classes

Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop
Various dates and times
Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop offers a number of online creative writing workshops, including multi-week classes and one-day sessions. Among other workshops, they offer a free online gathering for writers of all levels and genres every first and third Friday of the month. These sessions are a great way to get back into the flow of your work in the supportive presence of other writers. Other workshops beginning in November are on topics that include fiction writing, creating characters, generative translation, memoir, narrative structure, hybrid forms, and much more.
Location: online | Cost: $30 to $275 | Details

Art Meets Expressive Writing Workshop with Vivian Ladd and Joni B. Cole
November 5, 5:30 to 7:00 pm
This workshop fuses explorations of works of art with fun and meaningful expressive writing exercises. No writing experience required, just a willing pen and curious mind.
Location: online | Cost: free | Details

Writing for Healing Workshop with Vicky Fish
Wednesdays, November 11 and 18, December 2, 9, and 16; 6:30 to 8:00 pm
This five-week workshop will create a safe and supportive environment for you to explore your healing through the written word. Through writing we discover and can recover parts of ourselves. Writing taps into our wise unconscious, where healing and hidden resources often reside. Through writing we have a chance to understand our stories and rewrite our stories. During each session, prompts will be offered as the springboard for in-session writing. Sharing will be encouraged but not required. Prompts will also be offered for your own writing between sessions. Preregister by contacting the instructor at .
Location: online | Cost: $165 |

The Fluidity of Memory: Finding Strength in Your Story
November 14, 9:30 am to 12:00 pm
Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Candidate Ruth Amara Okolo is offering a workshop that gives insights into the importance of creative nonfiction. Through an exploration of the elements of the genre, she presents an approach and technique to creating, writing memories that shows life in all its color, description, and realism.
Location: online | Cost: $25 to 65 | Details

Listening in Place - Thanksgiving Family Interviews
November 14: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Part of the Vermont Folklife Center’s Listening in Place initiative developed in response to COVID-19, this workshop covers the basics of recording interviews (online, over the phone or in person within your household if it’s safe to do so). It also introduces the VFC’s Sound Archive, where your interviews and documentary recordings may be submitted to be included in this open access, crowdsourced audio collection of Vermonters’ experiences of pandemic and 2020.
Location: online | Cost: by donation | Details

Everyday Poetry: Accessing the Poetry Within
November 15, 9:30 am to 12:00 pm
Enjoy the art of poetry with Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Candidate Sara Stancliffe as she unearths why poetry is a life force and examines poetry as an essence. Prepare to demystify poetry in this workshop by beginning with a low-key discussion on what we think poetry is, where it shows up in our everyday lives, and how we might access poetry to elevate our everyday existence. In this workshop, we’ll share music and collectively enjoy sounds of rhythm. This will be a “come as you are” workshop where no prior poetic experience or vocabulary or even passion is needed.
Location: online | Cost: $25 to 65 | Details

Listening in Place - Building Conversations for Civic Action
December 5, 2:00 to 4:30 pm
This workshop focuses on the crises of 2020 as an opportunity to reflect and learn from the social unrest, vulnerabilities and sacrifices experienced across the state and nation. This workshop will introduce and demonstrate the tools of Listening in Place, an initiative of the Vermont Folklife Center, that was launched at the early stages of the pandemic as a way to share our common experience and to create a record of how Vermonters are responding to this unprecedented time. Now calls to support Black Lives Matter and pledge greater commitments to eradicate racism in all its forms have propelled many of us out of lockdown and to re-evaluate how we stand for justice for our communities. This workshop is an open call for anyone who desires to prioritize these concerns.
Location: online | Cost: by donation | Details

Inner & Outer Weather: Character in Fiction
December 12, 9:30 am to 12:00 pm
Join Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Candidate Jonathan Calloway as he discusses how our stories’ characters, like ourselves, each carry a lifetime’s worth of experience, much of which the outer world is oblivious. Through generative writing exercises and close readings of excerpts from a wide range of fiction authors, you will investigate how perception can be used as a tool to shape evocative environments, sharpen focus, and redefine the boundary between the individual and the whole. You will have the opportunity to share and receive direct feedback from instructors and fellow participants, as well as acquire a set of tools to further your own unique explorations of the caverns of character development.
Location: online | Cost: $25 to 65 | Details

Rebecca Siegel

October 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

The Dipper - October 2020

Rebecca Siegel

October 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

October News

We are so pleased to bring you another great virtual author event in partnership with Hanover’s Still North Books. On October 14 at 7:30 pm, Sierra Crane Murdoch will be in conversation with Angela Evancie of VPR’s Brave Little State to discuss Sierra’s compelling nonfiction book, Yellow Bird.

Yellow Bird tells the story of Lissa Yellow Bird as she obsessively hunts for clues to the disappearance of Kristopher “KC” Clark, a young white oil worker who worked on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Drawing on eight years of immersive investigation, Sierra Crane Murdoch has produced a profound examination of the legacy of systematic violence inflicted on a tribal nation and a tale of extraordinary healing. Sierra and Angela’s conversation is bound to be riveting. Register today to attend!

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Alexandria Hall’s debut book of poetry, Field Music, will be published by Ecco on October 6. Alexandria is a poet and a musician from Vermont (and currently a PhD candidate in California). Publishers Weekly calls Field Music, “a striking debut…This atmospheric collection will transport readers to Hall’s layered landscapes.”

We are so fortunate that Alexandria agreed do to an interview with us, and we are equally fortunate that Rena J. Mosteirin enthusiastically agreed to pose the interview questions. The interview will be published on our site on Field Music’s publication day, October 6, so check our blog then.

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In Slow Club Book Club news, we recently announced the last book in our year of reading books by Canadian authors: Dionne Brand's 2018 hybrid poetry collection, The Blue Clerk. In this intriguing book—an Ars Poetica in 59 versos—Dionne Brand stages a conversation and an argument between the poet and the Blue Clerk, who is the keeper of the poet's pages.

A sampling of The Blue Clerk reveals its mesmerizing power. Listen to Dionne Brand read two of the prose poem versos on the Griffin Poetry Prize website (the book was shortlisted for the 2019 prize) and fall under its liquid language spell. We hope you decide to join us in reading The Blue Clerk beginning on October 15. If you do, please let us know; it's nice to know you're out there.

October’s Shooting Stars

A cool literary find from each of us to help light up your month!

First Wednesdays from Vermont Humanities are back, beginning October 7. This time around we are lucky to be able to listen to these lectures from our homes. I’m particularly excited to hear Jarvis Green’s lecture, “Atlantic Is a Sea of Bones” on November 7 We’ve posted the literary lectures from this series in our calendar of events. For the rest (including some really amazing topics from dance and Muhammad Ali to bird migration to food justice), please visit the Vermont Humanities website. —Shari
These days I often feel closed, tight, compressed into myself. I need reminders of expansiveness: drop the shoulders from my ears, breathe deeply. The other day I saw a link to a recording of Seamus Heaney reading “Postscript,” one of my favorites of his poems. Rereading it always blows me open, as the last line intends. Hearing Seamus’ own voice makes it even better.—Rebecca

October Highlights

Layli Long Soldier will read as part of the virtual Poetry at Bennington series on October 7 at 7:00 pm.

Samantha Kolber celebrates the release of her new chapbook, Birth of a Daughter, with a virtual event at Bear Pond Books on October 9 at 7:00 pm.

Sierra Crane Murdoch discusses her book Yellow Bird with Brave Little State’s Angela Evancie via Still North Books & Bar on October 14 at 7:30 pm.

The Brattleboro Literary Festival takes place virtually this year from October 16 to 18, featuring writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Jason Lutes appears as a part of Virtual Bookstock 2020 on October 15 at 7:00 pm.

Phil Klay will read and discuss his latest novel, Missionaries, on October 16 at 7:00 pm. This online event is presented by both The Norwich Bookstore and Still North Books & Bar.

603: The Writers’ Conferences is online this year on October 17 from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm, with featured speaker Brunonia Barry.

Charles Simic gives a virtual reading sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and Gibson’s Bookstore on October 20 at 7:00 pm.

Visit our calendar for detailed information about these events and more!

Worth a Listen

Artwork by Sludge Thunder — *Artwork by* *Sludge Thunder*

Daniel Hornsby speaks about his debut, Via Negativa, on Marginalia. His new novel was recently recommended by Lauren Groff on Twitter.
On the Slow Stories podcast, Sanaë Lemoine discusses her writing process for her debut, The Margot Affair.
Middlebury grad Bianca Giaever has a wonderful new podcast for The Believer called Constellation Prize. Five episodes about strangers, religion, poetry, and art are available now.
Dustin Schell and Alexander Chee (curators of the Still Queer reading series) were featured on Christine Lee’s podcast, Front Yard Politics, talking about gardening during the pandemic.

We're Looking Forward to These October Releases

Mantel Pieces, by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate, October 1)
Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam (Ecco, October 6)
The Hole, by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyd (New Directions, October 6)
The Superationals, by Stephanie La Cava (Semiotext(e)/Native Agents, October 13)
Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I write, by Claire Messud (W.W. Norton & Company, October 13)
The Century, by Éireann Lorung (Milkweed Editions, October 13)
The Silence, by Don DeLillo (Scribner, October 20)
Divorcing, by Susan Taubes (NYRB Classics, October 27)
Memorial, by Bryan Washington (Riverhead, October 27)

Calls For Submission and Upcoming Deadlines

Hunger Mountain Issue 25: Art Saves
Send your manifestos and rhetoric, your stories and poems, your essays and forays into justifying art as an answer to—and escape from?—these trying times: pandemics, forest fires, catastrophe, white-supremacy, murder, burning buildings as the only way to be heard, and fascism. Please submit prose of no more than 8,000 words, or up to three flash pieces all in one document; for poetry, 1 to 5 poems all in one file.
Deadline: October 15 | Details

Sundog Poetry Center’s First or Second Book Award Prize for a Vermont Poet
Sundog Poetry Center is pleased to announce the inaugural book award for a first or second poetry manuscript, in partnership with Green Writers Press, who will design, print and distribute the book nationwide. The final judge is Vermont Poet Laureate Mary Ruefle. A cash prize of $500 will be awarded along with 50 copies. Manuscripts should be between 48 and 64 pages. All submissions must be authored by a poet who resides in Vermont; proof of residency will be requested along with a $20 application fee.
Deadline: October 31 | Details

Sunken Garden Chapbook Prize for Poetry
Tupelo Press’ Sunken Garden Prize seeks submissions of previously unpublished, chapbook-length poetry manuscripts. The prize is open to anyone writing in the English language. This year’s judge is Mark Bibbins. The winner receives a $1000 cash prize, in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, 25 copies of the winning title, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion.
Deadline: October 31 | Details

Bennington Unbound
October 15 to December 15
These four-week intensive online courses in fiction and nonfiction (October 15 to November 15, and November 15 to December 15) are geared toward current college and college-ready students considering an academic gap year or looking to supplement their current coursework. The courses are taught by Bennington’s award-winning graduate and undergraduate writing and literature faculty. Weekly live video class meetings foster an intimate seminar experience. Web-based discussion forums and unique multimedia resources extend the classroom community. All students will write both creatively and critically. Students earn one college credit per course.
Deadline: one week prior to the beginning of each course | Cost: $600/course | Details

The Dorset Prize for Poetry
Tupelo Press’ Dorset Prize is seeking submissions of previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscripts. The prize is open to anyone writing in the English language. This year’s judge is Tyehimba Jess. The winner receives at $3000 cash prize and a week-long residency at MASS MoCA, in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, 20 copies of the winning title, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion.
Deadline: December 31 | Details

Junction Magazine Editorial Board
If you're passionate about the vibrant community of the Upper Valley, and showcasing the myriad cultures that exist here, consider joining the Junction Magazine Editorial Board. Their areas of coverage are Arts and Culture, Food and Farm, People, and the Wild. Editors meet bi-weekly, and share pitching, writing, editing, and layout duties, as well as the (small) financial cost of the website and hosting.
Deadline: none given |

Upcoming Workshops and Classes

Horace Greeley Writers’ Symposium
October 17, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm
Aspiring writers, published authors welcome. Writing workshops, networking, Q&A, and more. Location: United Baptist Church, East Poultney | Cost: $65 adults; $20 students | Details

Expressive Writing with Vivian Ladd and Joni B. Cole
November 5, 5:30 to 7:00 pm
This workshop fuses explorations of works of art with fun and meaningful expressive writing exercises. No writing experience required, just a willing pen and curious mind.
Location: online | Cost: free | Details

Rebecca Siegel

November 1, 2019

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

The Dipper - November 2019

Rebecca Siegel

November 1, 2019

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

November News

No sooner had we whispered aloud the existence of Ben Cosgrove’s upcoming Little Dipper chapbook, A Space Filled with Moving, than the edition’s initial run of 25 immediately sold out via pre-orders! We’re all bowled over and so grateful for your interest in these little books.

If you missed out on the first 25, we’ve decided to put our aprons back on, re-set the type, and make a second run of 25. The second batch will be available to those who attend Ben’s launch party on Friday, December 6, from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Ben will read, he’ll play a little music, and we’ll eat some salty snacks in honor of Ben’s album Salt, which features in the book. Put that party date on your calendar! We’ll share more information about the launch party very soon.

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If you’re reading Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport along with us, you’re now about 200 pages in and we’re really wondering what you think of the book. Are you ready for another 800 pages, or have you had enough of “the fact that” to last a lifetime? We’re sharing our thoughts in the comments of our blog post and also on our Instagram feed. Let’s hear from you: do you love it? Are you not sure? Do you find it meditative or confounding? What do you think of the narrator’s obsessions? Where do you think this book is leading? We’re not entirely sure ourselves, so we’d really love to hear from you!

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As you know, we’re huge fans of the playwright Nathan Yungerberg, whose play Esai’s Table just completed its world premiere in October with Jarvis Green’s JAG Productions in White River Junction, Vermont. From here, the play will move to the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City. We were among the lucky people who got to see the evolution of the play from its early incarnation as part of JAGFest 2.0’s staged reading series to the full production and we recently had a chance to interview Nathan about that process. If you missed the play in Vermont, we hope you can get to New York City next March to see it!

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The 5th Annual Vermont Book Award winner will be announced at a Gala held at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, Vermont, on Saturday, November 9 at 6:30 pm. The finalists—Sue Burton, Michael Collier, Anna Maria Hong, Daphne Kalmar, Jason Lutes, Kekla Magoon, Rebecca Makkai, Leath Tonino, and Tony Whedon—will read, you’ll get to snack on refreshments and hear live jazz, and you’ll be the first to find out this year’s winner. This will be our second time in attendance, and we hope to see you there! Tickets are $45 and available now.

November Highlights

On Saturday, November 2, Portsmouth New Hampshire’s 2018-2020 Poet Laureate, Tammi Traux, will be reading from her verse novel, For to See the Elephant, at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, New Hampshire, at 2:00 pm.

Maaza Mengiste, author of the novel The Shadow King, is reading as part of the Cleopatra Mathis Poetry & Prose Reading Series at Dartmouth College’s Sanborn Library in Hanover, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, November 5, from 4:30 to 6:00 pm.

Miciah Bay Gault will read on Wednesday, November 6, at 4:00 pm as part of the Norwich University Writers Series in Northfield, Vermont.

Dartmouth College’s Baker-Berry Library East Reading Room, in Hanover, New Hampshire, Rena J. Mosteirin and James E. Dobson are presenting their new book of poetry and critical theory, Moonbit, on Thursday, November 7, at 4:30 pm.

*Megan Mayhew Bergman. Photo by Bo Bergman*

Author and journalist Megan Mayhew Bergman will talking about Climate Change in the South at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, on Monday, November 11 at 7:00 pm as a part of the CAPA (Center for the Advancement of Public Action) symposium.

On Tuesday, November 12 at 4:30 pm, Ivy Schweitzer and Gordon Henry celebrate the publication of Afterlives of Indigenous Archives: Essays in honor of the Occom Circle with short presentations, books for sale, and light refreshments in the Wren room in Sanborn House at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Poet Jason Tandon reads as part of the Ferguson Reading Series at Water Street Bookstore on Wednesday, November 13, at 6:30 pm in Exeter, New Hampshire. Jason’s reading will be followed by an open mic.

Thursday, November 14 is loaded with several events across the two states, including Megan Mayhew Bergman and Spring Ulmer reading at Middlebury College’s Axinn Center in Middlebury, Vermont, on Thursday, November 14 from 4:30 to 5:30 pm.

Also on Thursday, November 14, the Cleopatra Mathis Poetry & Prose Reading Series presents poet Tyehimba Jess reading at Dartmouth College’s Sanborn Library in Hanover, New Hampshire, at 4:30 pm.

Thursday, November 14 also brings Richard J. King, who celebrates the launch of his book Ahab’s Rolling Sea, at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, New Hampshire, at 6:00 pm.

And finally, on Thursday November 14, at 7:00 pm, see Pulitzer Prize winning writer Samantha Power present her new memoir, The Education of an Idealist, at The Music Hall Loft in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Visit our calendar for detailed information about these events and more!

Worth a Drive

Terry Tempest Williams will be at The Brattle Theatre, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 14, at 6:00 pm, to read from her new book of essays, Erosion.

Worth a Listen

Leanne Shapton’s interview on Writers and Company was wonderful and worth your time.
Lisa Brennan-Jobs over at So Many Damn Books. Delightful!
A behind-the-scenes look at one of our favorite publishing houses, Fitzcarraldo Editions, with founder Jacques Testard at What Editors Want.
The fabulous Major Jackson at Dropping In.

We're Looking Forward to These November Releases

The Crying Book, by Heather Christle (Catapult, November 5)
Vernon Subutex 1, by Virginie Despentes (FSG, November 5)
Humiliation, by Paulina Flores (Catapult, November 5)
Pain, by Zeruya Shalev (Other Press, November 5)
Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop, by Thomas Travisano (Viking, November 5)
Ahab’s Rolling Sea, by Richard J. King (University of Chicago Press, November 11)

Calls For Submission and Upcoming Deadlines

The Hopper
The literary magazine from Green Writers Press is currently accepting submissions of nonfiction, short fiction, poetry, visual art, and book reviews.
Deadline: none given | Details

Marble House Project Residencies
Applications are open for the 2020 residency season. Applications are accepted in fiction, playwriting/screenwriting, poetry, non-fiction, and a variety of other creative fields. Residencies run from April through October. Each session accommodates eight artists and is specifically curated to bring together a diverse group of creative workers. $35 application fee.
Deadline: December 9 | Details

Bloodroot Literary Magazine
Submissions are open for Bloodroot, Volume 12. Send three to five pages of poetry or 10 to 12 pages of fiction or nonfiction in Microsoft Word format. For other work, like an experimental form or digital project, please send a one-page proposal and the editors will be in touch if they want to see more. They are looking for new, unpublished work.
Deadline: December 31 | Details

Zig Zag Lit Mag
Accepting submissions for Issue 8. Send up to three pieces of writing. Must be a resident of Addison County.
Deadline: December 31 | Details

Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards
Submissions are open for the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards for Speculative Fiction, Debut Speculative Fiction, and Playwriting. For fiction, any work published or under contract to be published no earlier than January 1, 2019 and no later than December 31, 2019 is eligible. For plays, they invite submissions of full-length plays addressing the question “What does it mean to be a human in a computerized world?” The fiction awards come with an honorarium of $5,000 to be received at an event at Dartmouth College. The playwriting award comes with a $5,000 honorarium as well as a support for a two-stage development process with table readings at local arts festivals.
Deadline: December 31 | Details

2020 Dartmouth Poet in Residence at The Frost Place
The Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire, invites applications for a six-to-eight-week residency in poet Robert Frost’s former farmhouse. The residency period begins July 1 and ends mid-August, and includes an award of $1,000 from The Frost Place and an award of $1,000 from Dartmouth College. $28 application fee.
Deadline: January 5, 2020 | Details

2020 Frost Place Chapbook Competition
The Frost Place invites submissions to the eighth Annual Frost Place Chapbook Competition, sponsored by Bull City Press. The winner’s chapbook will be published by Bull City Press in Summer 2020. The winner will receive 10 complimentary copies (from a print run of 300), and a $250 prize, a full scholarship to attend the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place, August 2020, and will give a featured reading from the chapbook at the Seminar. $28 application fee.
Deadline: January 5, 2020 | Details

MacDowell Colony Summer 2020 Residency
Applications for the summer residencies (June 1 to September 30, 2020) are now open. The MacDowell Colony provides time, space, and an inspiring environment to artists of exceptional talent. A MacDowell Fellowship, or residency, consists of exclusive use of a studio, accommodations, and three prepared meals a day for up to eight weeks. There are no residency fees.
Deadline: January 15, 2020 | Details

Center for Cartoon Studies, MFA Degree and Certificate Programs
Now accepting applications for the MFA, one- and two-year certificate programs, and low-residency second-year option. Learn all you need to know about making comics and self-publishing in a prolific and dynamic environment and community. $50 application fee.
Deadline: rolling admissions until programs are filled | Details

Junction Magazine
Junction Magazine founder James Napoli has moved to Minneapolis. With his blessing, a local collective has decided to re-launch the magazine, and they invite you to contribute. Pitches and submissions should fit into one or several categories/subject areas: arts and culture, food and farm, people, wild, photo essays, and the calendar.
Deadline: rolling submissions | Details

Crossroads Magazine
Crossroads is an independent, student run magazine based out of Burlington, Vermont. They accept very short fiction and poetry, 300 words or fewer. Submissions should be in Word or typed directly into an email. No PDFs, please.
Deadline: rolling submissions | Details

Upcoming Workshops and Classes

Magic in the Kettle: Writing Magical Realism in Fiction with Bianca Viñas
November 2, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
Transport yourself from the ordinary into the realm of the fantastic. In this workshop, writers develop an eye for the bewitching, secretly hidden world of magic. We start with the ordinary and make the leap into the extraordinary. Prepare to be immersed with live audioscapes, videos, and, of course, writing exercises. Equal measures mediation and imagination, this workshop will give you the eye for magic in fiction.
Location: Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont | Cost: sliding scale | Details

Vermont Folklife Center Workshops
November 2 through December 7
Vermont Folklife Center workshops offer training opportunities for community members, undergraduate and graduate students, and others interested in developing skills in ethnography, oral history, and cultural documentation. This fall’s offerings include “Intro to Audio Storytelling: Interviewing & Recording” in Brattleboro, Vermont; “Oral History and Audio Stories” in St. Johnsbury, Vermont; “Intro to Audio Storytelling: Editing Basics” in Brattleboro, Vermont; “Oral History” in Burlington, Vermont; and “Storytelling for Community-Based Projects” in Burlington, Vermont.
Location: various | Cost: $95 ($55 students) | Details

Gentleheartedness: A writing and Yoga Retreat with Deb Heimann and Joni Cole
November 3, 12:30 pm to 8:30 pm
As we ready ourselves for the various end-of-year holidays and cold starkness of the coming winter, many of us feel anxious, overwhelmed, and even grumpy. In this eight-hour retreat we welcome all who wish to cultivate gentleheartedness as a means of dissipating fear and anger and channeling the potency of kindness toward peace within ourselves and the world. We will call on ceremony to support our hearts; write from prompts that explore our relationship to peacefulness, gratitude, and tenderness; breathe and move in ways that nurture us; and share ourselves, our writing, and a meal.
Location: Good Commons Retreat Center, Plymouth, Vermont | Cost: $110 | Details

Travel Blogging and Web Design with Virginia Booth
Sundays, November 3, 10, and 17, 2:00 to 3:30 pm
Join Virginia Booth as she delves into a three-week series that explores the ins and outs of the various marketing strategies that we are exposed to daily, step-by-step instructions for building your own website, and the depths of travel blogging.
Location: Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont | Cost: sliding scale | Details

Vermont Humanities Council Fall Conference
November 15 to 16
Registration is open for the 2019 Fall Conference, “Searching for Home: Journeys, Quests and Migrations.” The conference includes talks and breakout sessions on the topic of “the search for home.” This year’s plenary speakers include essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon, clarinetist Kina Azmeh, Dr. Hasia Diner from New York University, and professor Carol Dougherty from Wellesley College.
Location: University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont | Cost: $149; $99 for students | Details

Writing Fiction with Ukamaka Olisakwe
November 16, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
In this workshop, writers will pay attention to how they consciously or unconsciously shape their character’s interiority, or what is also referred to as a character’s mental process, and the reader’s access or lack of access to them. We will consider some short stories/novel excerpts and how their authors pay attention to the characters’ mental processes, as well as doing some writing of your own. You’ll leave the workshop with more insight into how to create complex characters, as well as new tools to bring into your own writing. Bring something to write with.
Location: Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont | Cost: sliding scale | Details

NaNoWrMo Rally: An Expressive Writing Workshop with Joni B. Cole
November 18, 6:30 to 8:00 pm
The pressure’s on if you’re participating in National Novel Writing Month, the creative writing project that challenges participants to write a 50,000 word manuscript in November. Let us take some of that pressure off with this fun expressive writing workshop that invites you to write from a prompt to develop a character….add a plot twist…or discover a scene that’s just been waiting to burst onto the page. Bring a notebook or laptop, and leave all self doubts at the door.
Location: Norwich Public Library, Norwich, Vermont | Cost: free | Details

Poetry of Protest with Rebecca Jamieson
December 7, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
What can poetry offer in times of political crisis? How have writers used their poetry as a form of resistance, and how might we follow their lead? In this class, we’ll explore these questions through discussion, writing prompts, and reading the diverse and powerful ways that other poets have approached these subjects in their work. Bring something to write with.
Location: Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont | Cost: sliding scale | Details

Quiecence: A Yoga and Writing Workshop with Deb Heimann and Joni Cole
December 7, 9:00 am to noon
In this intimately-sized three-hour “retreat,” we welcome all who wish to revitalize their spirit through a combination of yoga and expressive writing. As part of the yoga practice, we will refresh through breathing exercises, poses to open channels of vitality, and heart-centered intention. We also will write from a prompt as a means of exploring our thoughts and feelings on the page, and sharing our journey forward. Absolutely no yoga or writing experience is required to attend this retreat.
Location: Central Street Yoga, Taftsville, Vermont | Cost: $55 | Details

Rebecca Siegel

September 3, 2019

Interview

Interview: Sara London

Rebecca Siegel

September 3, 2019

Interview

Sometimes the right book falls into your hands at just the right time, and that’s how we feel about Sara London’s new collection of poems, Upkeep, which is released today by Four Way Books. The poems in Upkeep feel somehow like burnished stones, solid and familiar in the hand, yet full of surprising veins and glinting minerals. Every word feels perfectly etched just where it ought to be, making each poem feel so fully formed you can’t imagine them being written any other way.

Through these poems, Sara London traces the pain of losing someone dear, the paths to finding a solid grip on the world again, and the ways we can all be both strangers and neighbors to each other. As the poet Tom Sleigh put it, “…her work embodies what Seamus Heaney once called ‘the steadfastness of speech articulation,’ in which her care for language is continuous with her care for other people and the world.”

We are so delighted that Sara agreed to do an interview with us, and we are even more delighted that Upkeep is here in the world at last! Go get your copy, and then read it out loud!

Sara will be reading along with Sue Burton at the Fleming Museum of Art in Burlington, Vermont, on Thursday, September 12 as part of the Painted Word Poetry Series. This is a great opportunity to see two wildly talented poets in one great evening.

Literary North: Upkeep begins with an epigraph from Seamus Heaney's “Clearances" and contains a poem titled “Letter to Seamus." The language in your poems also certainly shares a linguistic heritage with Heaney's poems (blunt, concrete, chewy, Anglo-Saxon vocabulary). Can you speak a bit about your connection to Heaney and his influence on this book and your writing?

Sara London: I love your adjective “chewy” to describe Heaney’s diction—those tongue-to-teeth words that afford so much pleasurable munching for the reader. His language dazzled me early on, the alliteration and percussiveness of the consonance, the imagery, his invocations of a rural Irish childhood amongst frogs and bogs. And his edibles, blackberries of course (“when the bath was filled we found a fur”), oysters (“The frond-lipped, brine-stung / Glut of privilege”), and milk’s “scuts of froth.” I love all his books, but Death of a Naturalist was a revelation to me as a young poet, and I still go to his many volumes and teach his poems routinely.

Within that lyrical feast, there are loamy, pitted layers of human complexity. It was a treat to hear him read on a few occasions, and when he and his wife Mary visited Smith College, I was able to join a more intimate afternoon chat with students. He struck me as a deeply generous, wise and unpretentious man. His sonnet cycle, “Clearances,” an elegy in memory of his mother, is one I return to again and again. And on the topic of language, in one section, he writes of his mother’s feeling of verbal inadequacy. “She’d manage something hampered and askew” — which makes the speaker “naw and aye /…relapse into the wrong / Grammar which kept us allied and at bay.” (Of course the Irish-inflected idiom is a famously rich dish, no matter the grammar!) I still feel sad that he’s gone—that big, profound poetic heart.

LN: Speaking of language, we were struck (and comforted) by your use of Yiddish in several poems. Did you grow up with Yiddish as part of your language at home? Does it enter your poetry naturally? How does it feel to play with multiple languages in a poem?

SL: My grandparents and great aunts and uncles (all gone now) would sometimes spice their English with Yiddish asides. These were uttered amidst laughter for private commentary or as punchlines inappropriate for the youngsters around the dinner table. And they used endearments like shayner-kops (“pretty heads”) for my sisters and me. Leo Rosten’s The Joys of Yiddish was as thumbed through as any dictionary or encyclopedia in my parents’ home.

My father seemed to take special pleasure in the humorous application of Yiddish, and in translating for us. I’ve kept a note he wrote in Yiddish after making a quick stop at my house in Northampton many years ago. In part, it reads: “Ich hob zum der w/c (oo) geganger . . . Das ist alles. Pa!” The full translation he provided reads: “I came, I saw, I drank a glass of water, I used the facilities, I sat on the porch. Be well, I love you, thanks, that is all — Dad!” For me, my father will always be associated in part with that older world in which Yiddish commonly punctuated Jewish American conversation. (These days, Yiddish is mostly used among Orthodox Jews.)

I love the sound of the language, though sadly I know little of it myself. (For Yiddish enthusiasts out there: Philip Roth has a hilarious riff on the word “pupik,” belly button, in Operation Shylock, where he perfectly characterizes the “sonic prankishness of the [word’s] two syllabic pops…” And I recommend Aaron Lansky’s Outwitting History, his richly anecdotal account of founding the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.)

LN: The Martian poem series in the section titled “Fugitive You" is clearly about someone considered alien to our world or culture, but maybe not a true interplanetary alien. "Rain on the Red Planet," for example, made us think of the Jew as an alien in America. Can you talk about the inspiration behind the Martian poems and the interplay between Judaism and "Martianism"?

SL: So many thoughts converged in that poem. As we uncover more details about Mars, we come closer to “touching” the red planet, yet human touch comes with such serious liabilities historically and environmentally. There’s an apocalyptic note in that “hard rain.” And though I wasn’t making an explicit association between Martians (aliens) and Jews, I can see how one might decipher a link. The persecuted Jew and the Jewish immigrant hover as ghosts in some of my poems; they’re fixtures of my cultural and historical imagination I suppose. The Martian I’ve imagined, on the other hand, dwells in a sort of cosmic innocence—alien, yet safely so.

But the Martian series actually began as a sort of linguistic thought experiment: How might I describe both mundane and more profound aspects of human experience to “someone” who doesn’t know our world? It began with the playground swing—that universal apparatus of “escape” and “return”; children’s first release into “space.” I wanted to capture that uniquely kinesthetic sensation anew, “without any irritable reaching after fact and reason,” as Keats once put it. So the Martian became my test audience, but grew quickly “real” and complex for me, a being from afar for whom I grew increasingly affectionate. Not a god, but perhaps a sort of analogue of myself—a “nobody” in another realm of space and time, who became for me a pulsing “somebody” on the far side of my grief.

LN: The book includes several touching and personal poems about your father's death. What was your experience in writing these poems? How does it feel to be sharing them with the world (including your family)?

SL: Death is such a strange thing—there’s nothing commensurate, nothing like the thrust of close personal loss to so unsteady us. It’s a bit surreal. When I think of those days now, my father’s dying, I see it as a kind of cruel yet fascinating “magic” played upon the family, that “there/not there” conundrum. In that last phase, there’s an intensified physicality, as we note each breath; we lean in closer and closer, yet ultimately the very mystery of endings holds us at bay. We remain “outside” the experience.

An odd theatricality characterized my father’s last days—there was much that I couldn’t write about. Of course, there’s such a highly personal aspect to this sort of writing; a lot of raw emotion involved. One hopes that family members will understand that these privacies of grief are also shared, gleaming, human moments—they’re ours, yet also part of the sweeping mortal saga. I’m so grateful to have had poetry and family to help me through that time. And if my poems resonate with anyone, that’s a true bonus. The work simply flooded forth; never before or since have I been as prolific. The elegy is a vital inherited form, and poets’ lives are in some ways spent in preparation for a dip into these powerful waters.

LN: Did this collection begin with a specific idea or poem? How did the experience of writing this book—your second—differ from writing the first (The Tyranny of Milk, 2010)? What do you look for when you are gathering poems together to put in a collection?

SL: Unlike the first book, this one came together tonally, through elegy, though it took some time to get it all right. Organizationally, it was tricky; many poems focus on my father, but not all. And issues of tone created some challenges—the question of how to blend the humor, irony and sobriety in a way that would make for dynamic and logical reading and provide that desired “narrative arc.” I ended up taking out at least ten poems from the original manuscript (mostly more topical poems). And, at my editor’s wise suggestion, I placed the Martian poems at the front of the book rather than at the end, where they’d originally been. (They’re the most recent work in the book.) I think this reversal helped establish a more surprising, and, ideally, a more interesting point of view at the outset. I thought I’d go on to address this alien figure for a longer series (a couple of Martian poems were not included), but my weirdly extraterrestrial imagination proved finite. The Martian just stopped visiting. Nonetheless, I keep a glass of luminescent milk on my windowsill, in case my poem-pal returns!

LN: What are the simple things that you encounter in a day that might move you to begin a new poem? Do you keep a notebook?

It’s hard to say just where most of my poems come from, but reading good contemporary poetry inspires me to write; reading has always been ignition for me. But often a memory or a phrase will come unbidden, and I’ll write something down that might develop into a poem. Observation, experience, memory—all feed my impulse to write. And I’m always eager to get those initial pen scratches onto the computer. I’m an inveterate reviser; my first drafts are typically weak. But I try to nail that first inspiration quickly, so I don’t lose it, and then I work on poems for months. I make notes constantly—words, ideas, images, phrases, little sparks that could lead me to greater illumination. I don’t use a single notebook; I’m not that organized or particular, but I do put scraps in (paper) files, to keep track of poems when they’ve made it to the “in-progress” phase.

LN: The final poem in the collection ("New Worlds") feels so uplifting after many poems of sadness: "the heart's / pipes never yet wrung, old tubes, they play on." What was the source of this poem and how did you choose it to cap the collection?

SL: That poem, dedicated to the Ghanaian-born artist El Anatsui, was, in fact, unique in that I wrote it for a Mount Holyoke College Art Museum exhibition catalogue. As a member of the MHC InterArts Council, I worked with an interdisciplinary team of faculty members involved in collaborating on the Anatsui exhibition catalogue. His dazzling bottle-top sculptural pieces inspired the poem, and my own memory of collecting bottle caps in Mexico as a child helped me respond very personally to his process of trash-redemption. I was thrilled to meet him when he came to campus to talk about his work. And I wanted my book to close on a note of affirmation. I’m passionate about the visual arts in general, and for many years wrote arts journalism and reviewed contemporary exhibitions. I also love ekphrastic poetry (poems about art) and often teach it in my classes. I find that visits to art museums can be poetically soul-pumping.

LN: What is the most memorable thing you've read this summer?

SL: The most memorable book of poetry I’ve read in recent years is Tyehimba Jess’s Olio. The artful ambitiousness of that collection, its use of many forms and employment of technical acrobatics (his graphically sprung “syncopated sonnets,” for example), is truly inspiring. The poems are instructive historically, and awaken a world of voices from unheralded African American musicians and performers of the past. The book is a paean to lost artists, and a political statement so crucial to our moment.

As for what I’m reading now: a fascinating study of empathy in the primate world, Frans De Waal’s Mama’s Last Hug. This summer has been one of interruptions, so I’ve begun a number of excellent books that I’m still finishing: Margo Jefferson’s Negroland; Tom Sleigh’s new essay collection, The Land Between Two Rivers; Tracy K. Smith’s Ordinary Light and Patrick Donnelly’s Little Known Operas. In these terribly distracting and very troubling times, stretches of reading are too often broken up. But I’m always eager for the kind of linguistic, intellectual and emotional pleasure that’s most reliably found amidst the pages of books. I treasure that simple task of scrutinizing words, roaming among lines of poems—like Heaney’s lantern of Diogenes in “The Haw Lantern” —for that one honest thought.

Sara London lighter book photo color.jpg

Sara London is the author of Upkeep and The Tyranny of Milk, both published by Four Way Books. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including The Common, Quarterly West, The Hudson Review, Poetry East, The Iowa Review and the Poetry Daily anthology. She teaches at Smith College, and has also taught at Mount Holyoke and Amherst colleges. Sara is the poetry editor at The Woven Tale Press. She lives in Northampton, MA.