[Cwgrad-announcements] FW: Summer Poetry in Idyllwild - June 2007 Newsletter

Mon Jun 18 11:09:39 PDT 2007

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In this issue<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
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Letter from the Director . Scholarship News . Community News . Participant
Profile

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Letter from the Director:

Dear Friends and Poets and Friends of Poetry ~

By the time you read this, it will be summer, "officially," and only a few
more weeks before Summer Poetry in Idyllwild begins ... Poetry week "on the
hill" runs this year from July 15 - 21.  Although the special chapbook
workshop with David St. John is full (with a waiting list) there are still
spaces in the workshops that will be taught by Natasha Trethewey -- recently
announced winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry -- along with Terrence
Hayes, Richard Garcia, Eloise Klein Healy, and myself.  Our distinguished
visiting poets this summer will be Marilyn Nelson and David Lehman.

Every day after the intensive morning workshops, there will be small group
discussions on topics ranging from how to begin a poem to putting together a
manuscript and publishing a chapbook, followed by talks/master classes
conducted by our distinguished visiting poets on "The Making & Performance
of Poetry." David Lehman will be presenting talks entitled "Wild Nights: the
Poetry of Eros" and "Poetry & Parody;" Marilyn Nelson will discuss "Inviting
the Muse in Silence" and "Making Poems from Research."

There's also a nightly open mic for workshop participants in the beautiful
open-air amphitheater, followed by a reading by members of the poetry
faculty and a reception. It's always an intensive, productive and festive
week in one of the most beautiful spots in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />California, and I hope you
can be part of it.  But register SOON, as sessions are filling quickly and
time is of the essence!

You can register for either of the three-day sessions, or both, by going to
the Idyllwild Arts website (www.idyllwildarts.org
<http://www.idyllwildarts.org/>  -- follow the links to SUMMER POETRY) or
calling the registrar: (951) 659-2171, ext. 2365.

Hope to see you in July!  

Best from sunny Poland ..

Cecilia Woloch

Director, Summer Poetry in Idyllwild

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Scholarship News:

This year's recipient of the Patricia Bibby Scholarship for a beginning poet
has been awarded to Amy Shulz.

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Community News:

POET-IN-RESIDENCE NATASHA TRETHEWEY WINS THE PULITZER PRIZE IN POETRY

The biggest news this summer is that our own Natasha Trethewey has been
awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her gorgeous, elegant, elegaic
collection, Native Guard. Several of us at Idyllwild (including Maxine Kumin
a few summers ago) told Natasha, on first hearing these poems, that the book
was going to win the Pulitzer. In my opinion, this recognition couldn't be
more well-deserved. It's going to be an enormous pleasure to celebrate with
Natasha and her husband Brett this summer!

Other members of the faculty and participants in Summer Poetry in Idyllwild
have been garnering awards and kudos galore, as well ...

LYNNE THOMPSON, who's been participating in Summer Poetry in Idyllwild since
the program began in 1999, has won the 2007 Perugia Press First Book Award
for her manuscript, Beg No Pardon, which will be published by Perugia in the
coming year. Kudos and congrats to Lynne!

INDIGO MOORE, 2006 Fellowship recipient, recently published his first book
of poems. Tap Root has been published as part of Main Street Rag's Editor's
Select Poetry Series and has been greeted with outstanding reviews. 

BRENDAN CONSTANTINE, assistant to the director of Summer Poetry in
Idyllwild, has been named a finalist for the National Poetry Series for the
third time. He's also released a new chapbook, called Crimewave, which will
be available for purchase during Summer Poetry week in Idyllwild.

MARK CHAPMAN, Summer Poetry in Idyllwild alum, has been awarded the 2007
Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize from Water~Stone Review for his poem "Ascension:
the Uprising."

STEPHEN MCDONALD, who's attended the summer poetry workshops for the past
three years, is having a chapbook, Where There Was No Pattern, published by
Finishing Line Press in late June 2007.

HARRY GRISWOLD'S first book-length collection of poems, Camera Obscura, is
being published this summer by Wordcraft of Oregon.

BETH RUSCIO, last summer's recipient of the Patricia Bibby Scholarship, has
been named one of six Newer Poets of L.A. by the L.A. Poetry Festival, and
will read with the other five poets on July 19th at the Central Library,
downtown L.A., Mark Taper Auditorium, as part of their ALOUD series. 

LARRY COLKER (see Participant Profile below) was named the poetry winner of
the 2007 California  Writers Exchange Contest, sponsored by Poets & Writers;
the prize was a trip to New York to meet with publishers, editors and poets.

SYLVIA LEVINSON was chosen National Award Winner for the City Works 2007
literary anthology. 

RACHEL KANN received a James Kirkwood Fiction Award in November of 2006 from
UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

LEE BEN YEHUDA'S poem, "Piano," was published in the Acorn Review 2005-2006
Issue, published by Grossmont College.

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Participant Profile: Larry Colker:

 larry
<https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/EMailImage.asp?ImageId=79459> When
I was growing up, my parents spoke French to each other when they didn't
want us children to understand. I credit that fact with my lifelong interest
in language. The realization that there are "different languages" astonished
me, for some reason. I got a master's degree in Romance Languages and
Literatures and studied psycholinguistics in graduate school. At my high
school, we had a 50-word vocabulary test every week; like piano lessons,
which were often dispiritingly tedious but which have been the source of
much enjoyment in my life, that forced attention to words has been a boon.
What I came to admire in writing was precision. I may as well mention that
in my day job I am a technical writer.

The impetus to write poetry came from reading "A Shropshire Lad"  by A. E.
Houseman when I was 14. Nearly everything I wrote for the next ten years was
in strict form, and "poetic" in mostly 19th-Century terms. A turning point
occurred in 1993, when I started taking Jack Grapes' classes, a method
approach that he calls "Finding the Deep Voice." A few years later I started
attending the Redondo Poets workshop and reading at their open mic. This
evolved into the weekly Redondo Poets reading at Coffee Cartel in Redondo
Beach, which I have co-hosted since 1998. During that time I have been
privileged to be invited to feature at many venues in and around LA.

I first attended Idyllwild's Summer Poetry Workshop in 2000, when one of the
guests was Billy Collins. I have attended as often as I can since then, with
one summer off to attend Cecilia's inaugural Italy summer workshop, a
special treat. Each trip to Idyllwild has been a spectacular experience. The
setting, the poets (students and guests), the workshop leaders, the writing
are like being transported to Fantasyland.

Many poems born at Idyllwild are in my chapbooks What the Lizard Knows and
Hunger Crossing (with Danielle Grilli), and in a manuscript titled Amnesia
and Wings, which was a finalist for the Cider Press Review Book Award. Last
year an excerpt from that manuscript won the California Writers Exchange
poetry contest, sponsored by Poets & Writers. I have been gratified to have
my work selected by a couple of dozen print and online poetry journals,
including local anthologies from Tebot Bach, Valley of the Contemporary
Poets, Poeticdiversity.org, Poetry in the Windows, and Little Joy Open Mic.

Click
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Maurya Simon

Professor 
Department of Creative Writing
University of California Riverside
900 University Avenue
Riverside, CA 92521-0318

TEL. (951) 827-2006 (office)

FAX: (951) 827-3619 
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