Monday, May 19, 2014

"The Poetry of Light": A Writing Workshop



Sunday, June 1, 1-4 pm, New Mexico History Museum 


Join Santa Fe Poet Laureate Jon Davis for a writing workshop based on Poetics of Light: Pinhole Photography. Open to high schoolers and older, the session brings participants into the Herzstein Gallery to study pinhole photographs and inhabit them imaginatively. Let language carry you toward and away from the images. Draft poems that engage what’s in front of you—and explore what is only suggested by these often mysterious photographs. Free. Make a reservation by calling 505-476-5096.

Broadside to Commemorate Poetics of Light: Pinhole Photography at the New Mexico History Museum

Printed by The Press at the Palace of the Governors

City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Jon Davis to Host Poetry Reading at the New Mexico History Museum on Friday, May 30, 2014, at 6:00 pm



On Friday, May 30, 2014, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Jon Davis will host “Santa Fe Poets 5,” the fifth of six group readings, the last of which will take place in June. Each reading will feature a different group of five poets reading with the poet laureate. The May reading will take place at the New Mexico History Museum in conjunction with the exhibit Poetics of Light: Pinhole Photography. The event is free.

At this reading, Davis will read from Reply All, a new manuscript, and from his most recent book, Preliminary Report, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2010. In addition to being Santa Fe’s fourth poet laureate, Davis is Director of the Low Residency MFA Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he has taught for 23 years.

The other poets reading in Santa Fe Poets 5:

Chee Brossy is a poet, fiction writer, and journalist living in Santa Fe. He is Diné, originally from Lukachukai, Arizona.  He is currently studying fiction writing in the Institute of American Indian Arts’ MFA program. He received both undergraduate and graduate Truman Capote Scholarships and has poems in recent issues of Taos Journal of Poetry & Art, Sentence, and the Denver Quarterly.

Joan Logghe was Poet Laureate of Santa Fe from 2010-2012. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry Grants, a Mabel Dodge Luhan Internship, and a Barbara Deming/Money for Women grant. Her books include What Makes a Woman Beautiful, Twenty Years in Bed with the Same Man, Sofia, Rice, and The Singing Bowl (UNM Press).  With Renée Gregorio and Miriam Sagan she is a founder of Tres Chicas Books.  

The author of a novel and five books of poetry, Carol Moldaw is a recipient of a Lannan Foundation Writer’s Residency, an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, and a Pushcart Prize. Moldaw has taught for many writing conferences and university programs, including Stonecoast, the University of Southern Maine’s low residency M.F.A. program, and the M.F.A. program at Naropa University.

Henry Shukman is a poet, fiction writer, and travel writer. His first poetry collection, In Dr No's Garden, won the Jerwood Aldeburgh Poetry Prize and was selected as Book of the Year by both The London Times and The Guardian. His poems have appeared in the New Republic, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement and London Review of Books. His latest book of poetry is Archangel published by Random House in the United Kingdom.

Farren Stanley is a creative non-fiction writer and poet who teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is a former editor of Black Warrior Review and has had work published by New Delta Review, elimae, RealPoetik, Marginalia, Caketrain, H_NGM_N, and Greying Ghost Press.

The New Mexico History Museumistory MuseumHist  is located at 113 Lincoln Street in Santa Fe. For more information, call Jon Davis at 424.2365 or e-mail him at jdavissimo52@gmail.com.

Established in 2005, the Poet Laureate program actively promotes poetry and the spoken word as integral parts of our civic life.





Thursday, April 17, 2014

A Poem from Last Saturday's Workshop

Last Saturday, I threw a workshop at the Main Library. It was a great group, with people who had been writing for years mixed in with people who hadn't written at all since high school. One of the writing prompts involved using a specialized vocabulary--the language of skateboarding or juggling or weather or scuba diving--to talk about the arc of a relationship. They were all pretty terrific, but Moira Gehring, who, together with the other good folks at the Friends of the Library, organized the workshop, wrote a terse poem using the language of economics that was both poignant and darkly humorous. Here it is:




ECONOMICS


An interdependence of incentives marked the early years.

The collateral of human capital enabled a balance of trade... with a surplus of good feeling.

Soon, consumption outpaced resources and the equilibrium price plummeted.

Our quota quickly became the deflation of shared dreams. 

And so we went from surplus to scarcity.





Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Santa Fe Poets 4



City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Jon Davis to Host Poetry Reading at the Santa Fe Community Gallery on Wednesday, April 16, 2014, at 6:00 pm


SANTA FE, NM — On Wednesday, April 16, 2014, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Jon Davis will host “Santa Fe Poets 4,” the fourth of six readings, the remainder of which will take place over the next three months at various venues in and around Santa Fe. Each reading will feature a different group of five poets reading with the poet laureate. The April reading will take place in the Santa Fe Community Gallery. The event is free.

At this reading, Davis will read from his new manuscript and from his most recent book, Preliminary Report, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2010. In addition to being Santa Fe’s fourth poet laureate, Davis is Director of the Low Residency MFA Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he has taught for 23 years.

Joining Davis for Santa Fe Poets 4 will be:

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, who was born in Beijing and grew up in Massachusetts and is the author of thirteen books of poetry, including, most recently, Hello, the Roses (New Directions, 2013) and I Love Artists: New and Selected Poems (U. of California, 2006). She lives in New York City and northern New Mexico.

Valerie Martinez, former Santa Fe Poet Laureate, who is the author of four books of poetry, including, most recently, Each and Her (University of Arizona Press, 2010), which won the 2011 Arizona Book Award. Her first book of poetry, Absence, Luminescent won the Larry Levis Prize.

James Thomas Stevens, who was born in Niagara Falls, New York, and is a member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation. Stevens has published seven books of poetry, including Combing the Snakes from His Hair, for which he was awarded a 2000 Whiting Writer’s Award. He teaches creative writing and literature at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Elaine Upton is an educator and translator and the author of a collection of poems,  Children of Apartness (Washington Writers’ Publishing House).

(Carol Moldaw, the scheduled fifth reader, has had to cancel and will participate, instead, in Santa Fe Poets 6 in June.)

The Santa Fe Community Gallery is located in the Santa Fe Community Convention Center on 201 West Marcy Street. For more information, call Jon Davis at 424.2365 or e-mail him at jdavissimo52@gmail.com.

Established in 2005, the Poet Laureate program actively promotes poetry and the spoken word as integral parts of our civic life.





Saturday, March 29, 2014

It's National Poetry Month in Taos, Too!


I seem to have the biggest head of all New Mexico's poets. I'll be reading with the more reasonably-sized poets Veronica Golos and Carol Moldaw on April 12 at 7 pm.

Poetics of Light: Pinhole Photography



Tom Leech, Director of the Palace Press, asked me to write a poem based on a pinhole photograph from the upcoming exhibit Poetics of Light: Pinhole Photography that opens on April 27 at the New Mexico History Museum.  The photograph I chose was Gregg D. Kemp's "Jane Always Dreaded Flying Home." This is the resulting broadside. I just happened to drop in as Tom was printing the first one. It's beautiful. Check out the ligatures on the "st"! (Yes, we poets get excited about the oddest things.)
Other events associated with the show: 
Friday, May 30, 6 pm, “Santa Fe Poets 5,” the fifth of six group poetry readings Davis is organizing as part of his tenure. Joining him in the History Museum Auditorium will be Chee Brossy, Joan Logghe, Carol Moldaw, Henry Shukman, and Farren Stanley. Free.
Sunday, June 1, 1 – 4 pm, “The Poetry of Light,” a writing workshop building on inspiration from Poetics of Light images. Open to high schoolers and older, the event is free, but reservations are recommended. Call  476-5096.