Asheville Wordfest 2009
Sponsors
ASHEVILLE WORDFEST APRIL 30 - MAY 3, 2009
SPONSORED BY THE MOUNTAIN AREA INFORMATION NETWORK
Asheville's free poetry festival in downtown Asheville, NC.
Come to live readings or watch it on webcast here.
“THE WHOLE WEEKEND WAS TRANSFORMATIVE FOR ME” - audience member at Asheville Wordfest 2008
Poetry Workshop with Keith Flynn, Sebastian Matthews and
Laura Hope-Gill after Wordfest
www.pramainstitute.org
2009 Live Video
Wordfest 2009 from American Green on Vimeo.
Laura Hope-Gill, Executive Director www.thehealingseed.com
Wordfest Asheville is coming. Check out this years amazing line up.
Quincy Troupe Poet, performer, and editor Quincy Troupe was born July 22, 1939, in St Louis, Missouri. His books of poetry include Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2002); Choruses: Poems (1999); Avalanche: Poems (1996); Weather Reports: New and Selected Poems (1991); Skulls along the River (1984); Snake-Back Solos: Selected Poems 1969-1977 (1979), which received an American Book Award; and Embryo Poems, 1967-1971 (1974). He is also the author of Miles: The Autobiography (1989), which received an American Book Award; James Baldwin: The Legacy (1989); and the memoir, Miles and Me... learn more.
Li-Young Lee is the author of four critically acclaimed books of poetry, his most recent being Behind My Eyes (W.W. Norton, 2008). His earlier collections are Book of My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001); Rose (BOA, 1986), winner of the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University; The City in Which I Love You (BOA, 1991), the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and a memoir entitled The Winged Seed: A Remembrance (Simon and Schuster, 1995), which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Lee's honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Lannan Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim... learn more.
Valzhyna Mort, born in Minsk, Belarus (former Soviet Union), in 1981, made her American debut in 2008 with a poetry collection Factory of Tears (Copper Canyon Press), cotranslated by the husband-and-wife team of Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright and Pultizer Prize—winning poet Franz Wright. Library Journal described Mort's vision as "visceral, wistful, bittersweet, and dark." The New Yorker writes, "Mort strives to be an envoy for her native country, writing with almost alarming vociferousness about the struggle to establish a clear identity for Belarus and its language." Midwest Book Review calls Factory of Tears... learn more.
Ross Gay was born August 1, 1974 in Youngstown, Ohio and grew up outside of Philadelphia. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Atlanta Review, among other journals. He is a Cave Canem fellow and has been a Bread Loaf Tuition Scholar. In addition to holding a Ph.D in American Literature from Temple University, he is a basketball coach, an occasional demolition man and a painter. Ross has taught poetry, art and literature at Lafayette College in Easton, PA and Montclair State University in New Jersey. He now teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and at.... learn more.
Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of Interpretive Work (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2008). She grew up in Tacoma, Washington, lived for a time on Cape Cod and in Alaska, and is currently perched in California, where she is a Wallace Stegner fellow in poetry at Stanford University. Elizabeth holds an MFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage, and has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference and the Vermont Studio Center. Her poetry has been published in such journals as The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Field, and is forthcoming in The Believer and Orion. She has completed a... learn more.
Frank X Walker is a native of Danville, Ky., a graduate of the University of Kentucky, and completed an MFA in Writing at Spalding University in May 2003. He has lectured, conducted workshops, read poetry and exhibited at over 300 national conferences and universities including the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry, Northern Ireland; Santiago, Cuba; University of California at Berkeley; Notre Dame; Louisiana State University at Alexandria; University of Washington; Virginia Tech; Radford University; and Appalachian State University. A founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, he is the editor of America! What's My Name? The "Other" Poets... learn more.
Lee Ann Brown is the author of two books of poetry, “The Sleep That Changed Everything” and “Polyverse,” which won the New American Poetry Series Award. She has published many chapbooks, including “Sustain Petal,” “Velocity City,” “I like the use of emes,” “Crush” and more. One of her poems, “Sonnet Around Stephanie,” was included in the “Best American Poetry 2001” and her work has been included in “The Boston Review,” “Verse,” “Bombay Gin,” “The Little Magazine,” “Capilano Review” and “Pressed Wafer.” Brown is also a singer, performer and filmmaker and the founder of Tender Buttons Press, which focuses on... learn more.
Gary Copeland Lilley is originally from Sandy Cross, North Carolina, and was a longtime resident of Washington, D.C., where he was a founding member of the Black Rooster Collective. He received the D.C. Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry in 1996 and again in 2000, and he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Warren Wilson College in 2002. His stories and poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, including The African American Review, Drum Voice, The New Orleans Review, Eighty-eight, Gargoyle, Cabin Fever,and Beyond the Frontier. He earned a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing fro ... learn more.
doris davenport is a performance poet, writer, and Associate Professor of English at Albany State University. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia; Out of the Rough: Women's Poems of Survival and Celebration; Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers; and This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. She has done more than 100 poetry performances and workshops and has taught at several colleges and universities, including Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Davenport received her... learn more.
Patrick Rosal is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive, which won the Members' Choice Award from the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and most recently My American Kundiman, which won the Association of Asian American Studies 2006 Book Award in Poetry as well as the 2007 Global Filipino Literary Award. His chapbook Uncommon Denominators won the Palanquin Poetry Series Award from the University of South Carolina, Aiken. His poems and essays have been published widely in journals and anthologies including Harvard Review, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review... learn more.
Ekiwah, which means Warrior in the language of the Purepecha, is an appropriate appellation. He has been battling cerebral palsy since birth—born ten weeks early and weighing less than two pounds. Ekiwah writes, "I cannot walk by myself, yet in my poems I not only walk, but give myself license to have eight legs and experience movement. When I read a poem, on an ephemeral level I go to the places the poet describes." His warrior nature also allows him this wisdom: "I don't feel my cerebral palsy is a battle I have to win. I don't battle more or less than anyone else—my cerebral palsy is simply there. For me the connection... learn more.
Pat Riviere-Seel is the author of two poetry collections. The Serial Killer’s Daughter was a finalist in the Main Street Rag Publishing Company’s 2008 chapbook contest and is scheduled for publication in early 2009. Her first collection of poems, No Turning Back Now, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2004 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Current poetry appears or is forthcoming in Kakalak 2008: An Anthology of Carolina Poets, Solo Café and Tar River Poetry. Pat is Associate Editor of Asheville Poetry Review. She has taught poetry classes for UNCA’s Great Smokies Writing Program and the College for Seniors... learn more.
Keith Flynn was born August 4, 1962. He studied at Mars Hill College and the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA) where he studied Creative Writing and Political Science. While at UNCA, Flynn was instrumental in founding the student newspaper, The Blue Banner, and in 1985 won the Sandburg Prize for Poetry. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1987 and formed the nationally acclaimed rock band, The Crystal Zoo, which produced three albums: Swimming Through Lake Eerie (1992), Pouch (1996) and Nervous Splendor (2003), an innovative compilation of music and spoken word. Serving as lyricist and lead singer... learn more.
Holly Iglesias is the winner of the 2008 Kore Press First Book Award. She is a poet and translator whose work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Prose Poem, Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, Margie, Crab Orchard Review, Massachusetts Review and Spoon River Poetry Review. She has been awarded fellowships by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Edward Albee Foundation. She is the author of two chapbooks, Hands-on Saint and Good Long Enough, winner of Thorngate Road’s Frank O’Hara Prize. A critical work, Boxing Inside the Box: Women's Prose Poetry, was published by Quale Press. She teaches at University of North Carolina-Asheville and... learn more.
Thomas Rain Crowe Tuckaseegee, NC was born in 1949 and is a poet, translator, editor, publisher, recording artist and author of twelve books of original and translated works. During the 1970s he lived abroad in France, then returned to the U.S. to become editor of Beatitude magazine and press in San Francisco and one of the "Baby Beats" and where he was co-founder and Director of the San Francisco International Poetry Festival. In the 1980s, after returning to his boyhood home in North Carolina, he was a founding editor of Katuah Journal: A Bioregional Journal of the Southern Appalachians and founded New Native Press... learn more.
David Hopes, A Renaissance man in the true sense of the word, Hopes is an accomplished poet, playwright, professor of Literature and Language, and visual artist. Dr. Hopes' artwork is steeped in mythology and mysticism. His bold strokes and luscious colors animate depictions of half serious-half burlesque moments of fantasy, often reminiscent of famous painters Marc Chagall and Henri Rousseau. Coincidentally, American writer and painter, Henry Miller described Marc Chagall as "A poet with the wings of a painter." Dr. Hopes, the playwright, has won the North Carolina New Play Project and the Siena Playwriting competition. His work has ... learn more.
Debora Kinsland Foerst is a lifelong resident of the Qualla Boundary, home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. She teaches English and Journalism at Cherokee High School, where she also serves as a staff advocate, student advisor, and member of the school’s improvement team. Debora’s poetry has appeared in the Asheville Poetry Review, Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry, Appalachian Heritage, Lights in the Mountains, Raleigh News & Observer, Kakalak 2007, and www.ncarts.org. Debora is one of 170 authors featured in Georgann Eubanks’s Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains, and her manuscript... learn more.
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Sponsor individual Poets with a quick $25 contribution by visiting http://brwm.org/ashevillewordfest/
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If you prefer to mail your tax-deductible donation,
please make your check payable to Asheville Wordfest/ MAIN and send to:
Asheville Wordfest
c/o Laura Hope-Gill
101 Christ School Road
Arden, NC 28704
This project is made possible in part by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  |