Appalachian Naturalist Brent Martin Virtual Reading July 8

Writers' Night Out - July 8, 7 p.m. Reading + Discussion... + Open Mic  Brent Martin, conservationist & multi-genre writer   Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain, on Martin's new book: "If I were making a personal top ten list of important Appalachian artists, writers, and musicians, I'd include--along with more well-known names like Doc Watson and Nikki Giovanni--photographer George Masa. Brent Martin's introduction splendidly places Masa and his work in the context of the mountains they both love so much--a perfect match since Martin, like Masa, has spent most of his adult life studying the southern mountains, protecting them, exploring them." NCWN-West invites you to join us via ZOOM (see link below).

Brent Martin's book, George Masa's Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina (Hub City Publishing), has just been released. Martin is also the author of three chapbook collections of poetry and of Hunting for Camellias at Horseshoe Bend, a nonfiction chapbook (Red Bird Press, 2015). His poetry and essays have been published in the North Carolina Literary Review, Pisgah Review, Tar River Poetry, Chattahoochee Review, Eno Journal, New Southerner, Kudzu Literary Journal, Smoky Mountain News, and elsewhere. He has recently completed a two-year term as Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the West. He is also the author of The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains: Essays on Journeys Past and Present.   Martin a lifelong conservationist and educator, having worked over a decade as Southern Appalachian Regional Director for The Wilderness Society, and prior to that serving as Executive Director for Georgia Forestwatch and Associate Director for the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. He has led outings for over 20 years for the above organizations, as well as Carolina Mountain Club, NC Bartram Trail Society, the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference, Highland Biological Station, and many, many more. He lives in the Cowee community in Western North Carolina, where he and his wife, Angela Faye Martin, run Alarka Institute.  For the Zoom link and to sign up for Open Mic: click here: glendabeall@msn.com Open mic: 3-4 minute max, poetry or prose (2 poems only, please)

Netwest at the Coffee House in Hayesville - a writer's evening, for sure.

We had a great time at The Corner Coffee and Wine Shop in Hayesville, NC last evening. In spite of a concert on the square, Brent Martin NCWN-West Rep from Franklin, NC and Ben Cutler, NCWN-West Rep from Swain County impressed a room full of writers and story-tellers with their poems and essays. We all enjoyed getting to know both of these fine, award-winning writers.

An Open Mic session was held and five people read poems, stories, or told a story.

We gave away two door prizes which we do also at Coffee with the Poets and Writers. None of the winners were members. We hope they will come back to other events held by NCWN-West.

Glenda Beall, Brent Martin and Ben Cutler

Joan Howard reads a poem at the Corner Coffee Shop where NCWN-West held a reading on Friday night, July 26. In front row are Mary Ricketson, Bob Grove and Don Long, members of NCWN-West. 

This was a well-received event and I hope, if we do this again in this venue, we will have more members participate. Wine and Coffee are available for purchase here. We can bring in food if we want. I like this venue and so do others I have heard from. 

You Want to Be Here - Brent Martin and Ben Cutler at the Corner Coffee and Wine Shop Friday evening, 6:30 PM - Hayesville, NC

Review by Lawrence Holden
  of Brent Martin's poetry.

An old woman watches television in "her beat up house trailer/ the home old man Passmore built / next door sinking into the weeds" as the poet wanders her winter fields looking for pot shards - remnants of a lost past. In town a homeless man sells weeds, bouquets of common clover he's pulled from cracks in the sidewalk, holding out a bouquet "so delicately he could be holding a baby," saying "this one is called Everyday People."

Walking old Indian mounds, two friends recite together Robinson Jeffers' defiant poem "Shine, Perishing Republic," "his hand slapping my back for emphasis, / where water now flows in rivulets / down upon the abandoned rail lines..." Such poems take us lovingly to a place most of us already know within ourselves - the place where we struggle to come to terms with circumstances of loss, impending change, a world in the harsh throes of modernity, and yet, unaccountably, still nascent with hope.

Downriver

by Brent Martin

The Ferryman tells me to fish downriver,
the crusty bastard, standing on his porch
cursing everything upstream.

He curses the town a while,
then he curses its conservative
church going citizens,

and as he is waving like the Queen
as I depart in my little red boat,
he tells me that Jimmy Sang

has been catching redeyes in the evening,
smallmouth in the afternoon.

You gotta Fish them v's though, the spot where the water
funnels through them old fish weirs.

Old angry and happy ferryman
with your bright river rolling on
birthing your final somber days.

Downriver, he says again, downriver.
Fish them v's and to hell with upstream.

Brent Martin & Benjamin Cutler to read 7/26/2019, Hayesville, NC at 6:30 PM, at the Corner Coffee and Wine Shop

The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains: Essays on Journeys Past and Present

If you love the southern Appalachians and Wendell Berry and Annie Dillard and Gary Snyder, read this beautifully written and deeply thought-provoking book.

--Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain

June 21, 7:00 PM, Macon County Public Library, Franklin, NC

 Brent Martin will read from his new book: The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains: Essays on Journeys Past and Present

Alarka Expeditions has plans

Brent Martin and Angela Faye have many exciting adventures awaiting the outdoor person this month. 
Visit their website, www.alarkaexpeditions.com to learn about a writing workshop by Brent and the opening of their new office in Franklin, NC.
Brent is a member of NCWN-West, a published writer and poet.

Brent Martin on the Bartram Trail in 2018

Nature Journaling & Phenology Workshop at Wander North Georgia! with Alarka Expeditions, November 10, 2018

Nature Journaling & Phenology Workshop at Wander North Georgia!

November 10, 2018

Wander North Georgia has teamed up with Cowee, NC based Alarka Expeditions (Brent and Angela Martin) for a day long workshop on nature journaling and phenology (recording natural phenomena through direct observation). The morning will begin at the Wander North Georgia shop in a classroom setting where attendees will learn about the history of this activity in our landscape, with readings from the 18th century American botanist and artist, William Bartram, who explored and described the upper Chattooga watershed in May of 1775. The techniques of phenology as developed by the famous conservationist Aldo Leopold, and his daughter Nina, will also be part of the morning’s classroom activities. We’ll take lunch to the field, where the afternoon will be spent in observation, writing, and creative exercises. Attendees will leave the day with a new awareness of how to appreciate nature in their daily lives and how to increase their powers of observation in the natural world.

The workshop will begin promptly at 10:00AM and end at approximately 4:00PM. The cost of the workshop is $55. 100% of the ticket costs will go directly to the workshop hosts and presenters from the Alarka Expeditions team.

What do you need for the course?
Hand Lens
Notebook/Journal
Pen, pencil (a set of colored pencils or pens will add to your experience if you like to draw)
Appropriate clothing for the day’s forecast
Pack Picnic Lunch/Water

Optional:
William Bartram’s Travels (available in paperback, best to get the Harper’s Edition)
The Law’s Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling
Binoculars

Brent Martin, poet, and Angela Faye Martin, singer-songwriter, to be featured at CWPW, Wednesday, September 19, 2018, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC

On Wednesday, September 19, 2018, at 10:30 AM, the NCWN-West’s Coffee with the Poets and Writers (CWPW) will feature poet Brent Martin. Martin’s wife, Angela Faye Martin, a singer-songwriter and artist will perform after Brent’s reading. CWPW is held at the Moss Memorial Library, 26 Anderson Street, Hayesville, NC. The reading and entertainment are free and open to the public, and an open mic will follow the reading and performance.

Brent Martin is the author of three chapbook collections of poetry, Poems from Snow Hill Road (New Native Press, 2007), A Shout in the Woods (Flutter Press, 2010), and Staring the Red Earth Down (Red Bird Press, 2014), and is a co-author of Every Breath Sings Mountains (Voices from the American Land, 2011) with authors Barbara Duncan and Thomas Rain Crowe   He is also the author of Hunting for Camellias at Horseshoe Bend,  a non-fiction chapbook published by Red Bird Press in 2015. 

Brent Martin’s poetry and essays have been published in the North Carolina Literary Review, Pisgah Review, Tar River Poetry, Chattahoochee Review, Eno Journal, New Southerner, Kudzu Literary Journal, Smoky Mountain News, and elsewhere. He lives in the Cowee community in western North Carolina where he and his wife Angela Faye Martin run Alarka Institute, a nature, literary, and art-based business that offers workshop and field trips.  He has recently completed a two-year term as Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the West.  

Angela Faye Martin is a singer-songwriter, artist, and naturalist, and has worked for The Wilderness Society, Georgia Forestwatch, Armuchee Alliance, and the Pacific Rivers Council. She has written and recorded two lP's and one EP - One Dark Vine, Anniversary, and Pictures from Home, which was produced by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse fame. She recently wrote and narrated the documentary, The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse, which is currently screening internationally at various film festivals and in the US.

When Angela Martin is not leading phenology and nature outings in the wilds of the Great Smoky Mountains, she is drawing 'tree portraits', writing songs, letters and spending time with her sagacious mutt, 'Isabella Queen of France.’

CWPW is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Association-West, which is a program of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. For more information, please contact Glenda Beall at: 828-389-4447.

Upcoming classes at Alarka Institute, Cowee, North Carolina

Upcoming Courses with Alarka Institute

October 7th (Saturday) - Expressing the Power of Place

This all day workshop (9 to 5) is for beginning and experienced writers who are committed to communicating the importance of place - where you live, where you hike, where your drinking water comes from – and what matters about its present and future state.  Participants will spend their time engaged in both dialogue and writing exercises at the new Alarka Institute Studio space in Cowee Valley. The class is limited to 10 people and the cost is $65. Materials and lunch included. 

October 21th (Saturday) - Fall art and phenology workshop at Alarka Institute 

Participants will explore nature journaling utilizing a variety of art genres, and will gain an understanding of basic phenology (record keeping on a daily basis of environmental phenomena).  A short hike of about 2 miles is part of the day's exercises, and lunch is included. Limit: 10. $65

ABOUT Alarka InsTITUTE

Alarka Expeditions/Institute is a Cowee, North Carolina based business owned by Brent and Angela Faye Martin.  Brent and Angela are both artists and writers, having led courses and outings for over twenty years in the southern Appalachian mountains, with expertise in birds, plants, trees, as well as cultural and natural history.  We can provide you with a range of outdoor experiences, and can work with you to fit your interests and skill levels. Custom designed hikes, along with basic birding, botany, forests, and Little Tennessee river trips are a few areas of our expertise, and we also offer group courses on winter tree identification, nature journaling, phenology, and cultural/natural history.  We are based next to the Nantahala National Forest and the Cowee National Historic District, the largest National Historic District in western North Carolina. The area’s natural beauty led the 18th century botanist and artist William Bartram to describe it as “one of the most charming mountain landscapes perhaps anywhere to be seen.”  

​

Brent Martin is a lifelong conservationist and educator, having recently worked over a decade as Southern Appalachian Regional Director for The Wilderness Society, and prior to that serving as Executive Director for Georgia Forestwatch and Associate Director for the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee.  He is the author of three chapbook collections of poetry - Poems from Snow Hill Road (New Native Press, 2007), A Shout in the Woods (Flutter Press, 2010), and Staring the Red Earth Down (Red Bird Press, 2014), and is a co-author of Every Breath Sings Mountains (Voices from the American Land, 2011) with authors Barbara Duncan and Thomas Rain Crowe   He is also the author of Hunting for Camellias at Horseshoe Bend,  a non-fiction chapbook published by Red Bird Press in 2015.   His poetry and essays have been published in the North Carolina Literary Review, Pisgah Review, Tar River Poetry, Chattahoochee Review, Eno Journal, New Southerner, Kudzu Literary Journal, Smoky Mountain News, and elsewhere.   He recently completed a two year term as the North Carolina Poetry Society's Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the West.  He has led Power of Place workshops for the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, Jackson County Arts Council, The Wilderness Society, and elsewhere. 

​

Angela Faye Martin is a singer-songwriter, artist, and naturalist, and has worked for The Wilderness Society, Georgia Forestwatch, Armuchee Alliance, and the Pacific Rivers Council.  She has written and produced three albums - One Dark Vine, Anniversary, and Pictures from Home,  which was produced by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse fame.  She recently wrote and narrated the critically acclaimed documentary, The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse, which is currently screening internationally at various film festivals and in the US. 

For more information contact Brent and Angela Martin at:

828 524 7400

alarkaexpeditions@gmail.com

www.alarkaexpeditions.com