NAZIM HIKMET POETRY FESTIVAL DEADLINE: FEB. 19

THE NAZIM HIKMET POETRY FESTIVAL DEADLINE IS UPON US! Please go to http://www.nazimhikmetpoetryfestival.org FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK TO THIS FESTIVAL. Submitting is free, online, and shouldn't be much of a hassle.

Give it a try!

NEW POET LAUREATE CROWNED

(At the state Capitol with Linda Carlisle, Head of the Dept. of Cultural Resources, and new Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers)

On Wednesday Feb. 10, Cathy Smith Bowers was officially installed as North Carolina Poet Laureate. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xAk6fOzaNE )I was delighted to place the laurel wreath on her head. My Lasso blog will now be archived here, so please visit it as often as you wish. The NC Arts Council will be setting up its own laureate website soon and will link to this blog.

Thank you for visiting this blog. Please visit my other blog now--Here, Where I Am, where I will be now and then featuring poets and new books from NC and elsewhere.

ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE

Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers
Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains, the anthology everyone is waiting for, is growing closer to the day of publication.

We are proofing the final copy this week. As soon as any little glitches are corrected, the book with over 200 pages and several photos, will go to the printer. We will have one more chance to proof the manuscript when the printer sends us the galleys.

We cannot give a definite release date at this time. As most know, the proofing and copyediting has been and is being done by NCWN West volunteers, and because of the volunteers, we will be able to offer this book at an affordable price.

We ask that the contributors and those who can't wait to read this terrific book, be patient a few more weeks. We are planning for a spring release and a book party. Our contributors and those who made donations for the printing, the photographers whose work is on the cover and inside the book, will be notified  and all will receive their free copies when we have the finished product in hand.

We can assure you, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge will be worth the wait.

In January, Coffee with the Poets, held at Phillips and Lloyd Books on the square in Hayesville, NC was, as usual, fun for all. Clarence Newton was featured poet. We welcomed back Estelle Rice, seen above on right, along with Joan Howard, far left and Mary Mike Keller. Most of our group moved on down to The Cottage Deli and Salad Station for lunch and more talk about writing. We were happy to welcome two visiting poets in January and hope they will return and others will join us on Wednesday.

                                                                                                                                       

Clarence Newton read to a full house last month.

Nancy Simpson enjoys hearing poetry read at CWP last month and we were all happy to see her tear herself away from her writing desk to be with us.

Glenda Barrett, author of the poetry chapbook, WHEN THE SAP RISES, published by Finishing Line Press, brought her mother to CWP in January and both enjoyed the delicious snacks served by Elizabeth Rybicki of Crumpets Dessertery.

COFFEE WITH THE POETS FEATURES ELLEN ANDREWS

Wednesday, February 10, at 10:30 a.m. Netwest member, Ellen Andrews, who lives in Robbinsville, NC, will read her poetry at Coffee with the Poets.
Ellen's poetry reflects the things that fill her day with delight and awe. I am not surprised she is a gifted writer. She is also an excellent photographer.

Daylillies by Ellen Andrews

I look forward to hearing Ellen's poetry on Wednesday at Coffee with the Poets at Phillips and Lloyd Books on the square in Hayesville, NC.

Her reading will be followed by open mic. Everyone is invited to participate or come and listen to others read. It is always a day of fun.

REDROOM.COM

For those of you interested in having a presence online, with access to hundreds of visitors, go to redroom.com, "Where the Writers Are," and register, either as a member or an author. (This is explained on the site.) Or if you don't wish to become a member (it's free) you can browse the contents. Redroom will occasionally give topics for its members/authors to blog about. Last time it was "my favorite poem." Here is my entry. It was selected as one of the top entries that the editors liked.

Two weeks ago, redroom.com asked its members to blog on the topic of "my favorite poem." How could I choose? One poem from all the ones I love? Then I took a look at our Aero garden and knew. Verde, que te quiero verde!

---------------------

GIVING MYSELF OVER TO GREEN

Poets are fickle creatures. We fall in love over and over again.We can never remain faithful to only one poet. I began to understand this the day I forsook Wordsworth in my college Spanish class. My poetic guide. My first love. How could I?

What was I doing in a Spanish class anyway? Hadn’t my father instructed me to take either French or German, the latter being his grandmother’s native tongue?

He would have found it silly, the way my infatuation began, with a 75 rpm record bought during my senior year in high school. The Music of Spain. I listened at night after lights out to “Granada” and “Malaguena.” The hair on the nape of my neck trembled. The dark outside my windows beckoned.

And so, on the first day of classes in a small woman’s college in Georgia, I sat down to learn Spanish from a short rotund woman who demanded we call her La Senora, although she had never married. I read the classics of Spanish literature, moving inexorably toward the 20th century where in the anthology’s last section, I found Romance Sonambula and, and in the burst of a verde viento, the English Romantic poets became as dust to me. I fell in love with Federico Garcia Lorca. In Spanish. No matter how many translations of his work I’ve read over the years, the original Spanish has never lost its seductiveness, whether I read it silently or, better, aloud.

Verde que te quiero verde.

Verde viento. Verdes ramas.

El barco sobre la mar

y el caballo en la montaña.

Con la sombra en la cintura

ella sueña en su baranda,

verde carne, pelo verde,

con ojos de fría plata.

Verde que te quiero verde.

Not that I agreed with La Senora that everything sounded better in Spanish. Shakespeare? Wordsworth? Keats? No, I already knew that the language of poets is beautiful, no matter what it is. Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, French, English....Cherokee.

Garcia Lorca’s poetry spun me around, gave me a new way of experiencing language, my own language, which was now infused with the cante jondo of Andalusia.

Even now, years later, I recite those lines as a kind of mantra, Verde, que te quiero verde... and I still love the feel of them in my mouth. I love the deep song of them in my viscera. I have dreamed of trying to save Lorca in the olive grove, with only my child’s fingers pointed like guns at his assassins.

Verde, que te quiero verde.

Not even these lines can stop bullets. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. I know that.

But they live on in our daily lives, these words we love. They wait patiently for us. I had to reach middle age before Garcia Lorca’s duende found its way into my own poems.

Gone

Long before I could read Lorca

I wanted to give myself over to green

as he had and be lost like a sleepwalker

in it. I wanted to hide in the honeysuckle

and never come home if it meant I must stay

by the telephone, waiting for someone

to call with the doctor’s pronouncement,

my mother then turning to us saying

over and over again in my memory, Gone.

Such a word I would never repeat

to the oaks that held sway round my favorite pasture,

or blackberry bushes I dreamed would stay

unscythed by road crews sent forth to claim

right of way. Verde, que te quiero verde,

I’d gladly have cried if I could,

but where are such beautiful words

when we need them? And what if that’s all

this poem means now I’m middle-aged: words

as a way to want green back again

and myself in the throes of it,

even though I’ve learned enough about Lorca

at last to be quite sure that no verde

anywhere spending its June on this earth

could have outstayed for one blessed

second what waits at the end

of the line, always some bloodless voice

trying hard to sound human across so much

distance, its words still escaping me.

(from The Store of Joys, NC Museum of Art)

W.H. Auden said that art is a way of breaking bread with the dead. Each time a poet begins to write, or to read a poem, she takes the bread of those gone before and places it in her mouth. She does this over and over again. With one poet. Another, and yet another, living or dead. She loves the taste of the bread they share. So many poets. So many poems. By the end of her life she will contain, like Whitman, multitudes, and will never again try to answer the question, “What is your favorite poem?”

Jeff Biggers - Reckoning at Eagle Creek:The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland

Jeff Biggers awed his audience at the Blue Ridge Bookfest in Flat Rock last year. We learn now he has a new book Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. If you are in Asheville be sure to put the following dates on your calendar. When Biggers performs his work, you sit on the edge of your chair caught up in his passion for the subject.

Coal Free Future events in Asheville:


Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 7pm, Malaprops:

Jeff Biggers performs excerpts from Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland

http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp;jsessionid=bacyse99yw3Lp6toSKOys?s=storeevents&eventId=433405

Website: http://www.jeffbiggers.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jeff-Biggers-Reckoning-at-Eagle-Creek/277990564288

Friday, Feb. 5th, 8pm, Asheville Community Theatre:

Asheville Premiere of "Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal"


Coal Free Future Project

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=247728060735&ref=mf

Website: http://www.coalfreefuture.org/

JENNIFER MCGAHA

Read an excellent non-fiction piece by Netwest member, Jennifer McGaha here.
Jennifer also has work in the upcoming anthology, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, edited by Nancy Simpson.

WRITING FOR CHILDREN - a Promotional Give-Away Class

John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C. has offered two free seats to the class WRITING FOR CHILDREN, to be taught by author and instructor Faye Gibbons. A $25.00 registration fee is required. One of the promotional give away classes has already been assigned. There is one left. If you want it call now 1 800 Folk Sch.

Class Description:

Writing for Children

Writing

February 7-13, 2010

Instructor: Faye Gibbons

Tuition: $527.00

Wonderful stories surround us. Tap into them! Discover techniques for using real-life experiences to create children's fiction. Write each day and share positive feedback. The instructor will offer comments and suggestions on at least one assignment and one final story for each student. All levels

If you are interested in more writing classes at John C. Campbell Folk School, click below.

https://www.folkschool.org/index.php?section=subjects&subject_id=47

LEDFORD PUBLISHED IN COUNTRY EXTRA

Jerry Taylor of Young Harris, Georiga plays a 1935 Imperial organ, the first of his collection of antique reed organs.

Brenda Kay Ledford's article, "The Organ Loft," was published in the January, 2010 issue of COUNTRY EXTRA. The feature is about Jerry Taylor, official historian of Towns County, Georgia and his unique collection of over 30 antique reed organs. To order a copy of this magazine, go to: www.//country-magazine.com.

Writers on the Radio with Joan Hetzler, host of Writers Show on WAWL Chattanooga

Recently I interviewed Joan Hetzler who produces and hosts the Writers Show on WAWL in Chattanooga, TN. I was on Joan's show a couple of years ago discussing Netwest, and she invited me to come back and talk about my poetry book, Now Might AsWell Be Then, but we had to cancel due to the rock slide between Murphy NC and Cleveland TN. I hope I can go later because I found Joan extremely professional and I enjoyed the entire experience. The following is my interview with Joan.

Glenda: I know you host the Writers Show on WAWL in Chattanooga. You are a writer, yourself. Why did you decide to pursue a radio show for writers? What was your purpose?

Joan: There are a lot of programs that offer published and well know writers the chance to promote their books. However, I didn't know of one that promoted the "craft" of writing and also gave unpublished authors that chance to air their work. The purpose of the show is to encourge and promote writing as well as readers.

Glenda: How do you plan your shows as to what writers, what kind of writing and how many writers you have on one show?

Joan: I try to have a variety of topics. For example, I've had playwrights with actors read their works, a tv producer talk about writing for broadcast news and air a sample story, poets, and storytellers. Right now we are limited in the number of guests but in a few months, WAWL is moving to a new studio where I hope to have several authors discuss writing in a roundtable set up.

Glenda: You tape your show yourself. You edit the show and, it seems, you do everything for the show including the interviews. How did you learn all this and how does this show help your own writing?

Joan: Originally, I had a producer who did all that. Due to staff cutbacks and tight deadlines, I found it helpful for me to learn to record and edit. If the show helps my writing, it's to keep my work condensed and just the essentials because both readers and listeners have limited time. Today, there are so many other forms of entertainment that pulls for a reader or listener's attention, that I'm aware the content needs to be interesting and fast paced.

Glenda: Thank you so much, Joan. I feel sure our readers will enjoy learning about you and your show.

Joan Hetzler was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and attended Chattanooga High School and The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga before moving to Atlanta to work for several years as a secretary. In her late twenties, she completed her undergraduate degree at Agnes Scott College and Emory University with a major in Philosophy. While working as a technical writer documenting computer software, she attended Georgia State University to compete a masters degree in applied philosophy with a focus on artificial intelligence.


Just before completing her M.A. degree, she developed severe allergies to chemicals in her work environment and moved back to Northwest Georgia. She lived in a log cabin on her mother's farm where she raised chickens, did organic farming, and took an active role in setting up an environmental group and establishing a community wide recycling program.


From North Georgia, she moved to St. Simons Island, where she lived for ten years until returning to Chattanooga. While on St. Simons, she wrote and published poetry chapbooks, established a poetry writing group, wrote newspaper articles, and a memoir about many of her experiences. Her poetry has also been published in the Savannah Literary Journal. Her writing has won awards in humor, nonfiction, playwriting and mystery at the Southeastern Writers Conference.


Since returning to Chattanooga, Ms. Hetzler has served on the Board of Directors of the Chattanooga Writers Guild. Her drama skits have been peformed in a local church. Selections from her memoir have been published at Southernscribe.com and other publications. She hosts The Writers Show, a local radio progam for writers which airs the first Sunday of each month at 1 pm. To find out more about the program, visit http://sites.google.com/site/thewritersshow/

Leave a Written Legacy, Write Your Family Stories will be taught by Glenda Beall

This writing class is for you if you have wanted to write about your family but have not had the time to do it. This class is for you if you have a story to tell but have not known how to begin.

Maybe you have already started, but your writing folder is full of unorganized papers.

Give yourself a week to focus only on writing. Leave your chores behind. Spend a week studying with Glenda Beall at John C. Campbell Folk School. Glenda Beall will give you direction. Class begins on Sunday, February 21 and ends on Friday evening February 27, 2010.

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

Recover old memories using family photos and keepsakes. Write stories and personal essays about your unique life experiences for your children and grandchildren, and then fine-tune your work by sharing with classmates in a safe, comfortable atmosphere. Beginners to intermediate writers--join us to get your start or for motivation and ideas to organize your work.

https://www.folkschool.org/index.php?section=class_detail&class_id=3538

Or call 1-800 FOLK SCH, (828) 837-2775 Local Residents may get half price.

Ask when you call.

READING AND SIGNING: CHEROKEE LITERATURE

Reading and Book Signing: Cherokee Literature in Appalachian Heritage .

(Please go to http://ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/2009/11/appalachian-heritage-special-cherokee.html to see the post on this special issue.

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian will host a reading and book signing Sunday afternoon January 17 from 2-4 pm in the Multi-purpose room of the Education and Research Center. Michell Hicks, Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, will introduce Cherokee writers featured in the new issue of AppalacAppalachian Heritage: A Literary Quarterly of the Appalachian South. This issue features works by twenty-one members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, with cover artwork and illustrations by Sean Ross, (EBCI.) Featured author of the issue is Robert Conley (Cherokee Nation) who is also Distinguished Sequoyah Professor at Western Carolina University and keeps office hours at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian as well.

This volume is the largest collection to date of contemporary literary efforts by members of the Eastern Band, and includes poetry, prose, essays, stories from oral tradition, and artwork. The Editor, George Brosi of Berea Kentucky, will attend the event, where Conley will read from his work. Authors will be available to sign copies, which will be sold through the Museum Store at $8 each.

ABOVE THE FROSTLINE - NEW AND SELECTED POEMS

Congratulations to my mentor and my friend, Nancy Simpson. Her book, Living Above the Frostline – New and Selected Poems, will be published by Carolina Wren Press, Durham, NC.
 Nancy’s poetry collection spans thirty-two years and is the first book chosen by Kathryn Stripling Byer for Carolina Wren’s Laureate Series.

For over thirty years, Nancy’s poetry has been published in the best literary magazines. Early on in her writing career, Nancy published two books, Night Student and Across Water. But Nancy, working at the time as a special needs teacher, was also quietly dedicating herself to other writers in her home area of western North Carolina. She took on the leadership of the writing organization, NCWN West, and she taught writing and poetry in night classes at Tri-County Community College.

Before she knew it, the years had flown and she had not published another book. When she retired from her job, she put her efforts into a new manuscript. Through family tragedies and health problems she endured, never wavering from her goal of publishing a complete collection of her poetry.

This book is a landmark, in a way. We all know that youth reigns in this country. Older men are revered for their achievements, but often women over fifty are dismissed, no matter how talented or special their work. That is why I applaud Carolina Wren Press and Kathryn Stripling Byer for choosing this book to publish as the first in the Laureate Series.

Osondu Booksellers merges with Blue Ridge

January 2010 Calendar

January 2nd-23

50 % off all books sale at Osondu Booksellers on 184 North Main Street.

Monday, January 18th

@ 7:00 pm: Non-fiction Book Club @ Osondu’s on 184 N. Main St.

Tuesday January 26th

@ 7:00 pm: All Gender All Genre Book Club @ Osondu’s on 184 N. Main St

Jan. 26-28

Blue Ridge @ 152. S. Main St. will be closed for integrating and a face-lift.

Friday, Jan. 29th

Come in and have a cup of tea or coffee, browse the books and say hello to some new and some familiar faces. This is the beginning of a great bookselling team. Magazines, newspapers and the café will all be fresh and fabulous.

ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE

Best selling writer and poet, Robert Morgan wrote the introduction to

Echoes Across the Blue Ridge

Other North Carolina authors have endorsed the collection including Lee Smith and more comments are forthcoming.


NCWN West Program Coordinator Kathryn Stripling Byer, Thomas Rain Crowe, Steven Harvey and Bettie M. Sellers were asked and they generously conributed their work for the anthology.
The book is dedicated to the memory of our Appalachian ballad poet
Byron Herbert Reece.


Other contributors who have work forthcoming in Echoes Across the Blue
Ridge:

Ellen Andrews
Richard Argo
Glenda Barrett
Glenda Beall
Jo Carolyn Beebe
Janet Benway
Joan Thiel Blessing
Rachel T. Bronnum
John T. Campbell
Gary Carden
Nancy Sales Cash
James M. Cox
Paul Donovan
Robert Edward Fahey
Jayne Jaudon Ferrer
Debora Kinsland Foerst
Joyce Foster
Karen Gilfillan
Gerri Wolfe Grady
Lana Hendershott
Eugene Hirsch
Sam Hoffer
Karen Paul Holmes
Tom Hooker
Kitty Inman
Carl Iobst
George Ivey
Mary Michelle Brodine Keller
Eileen Lampe
Blanche Ledford
Brenda Kay Ledford
Susan Lefler
StarShield Lortie
John Malone
Gail Maye
Marshall McClung
Jennifer McGaha
Mary Lou McKillip
Dick Michener
Maren O. Mitchell
Janice Townley Moore
Clarence Lee Newton
Arnie Nielson
Nancy Purcell
Betty Jameron Reed
William V. Reynolds
Estelle Rice
Mary Ricketson
Judy Roney
Rosemary Royston
Peg Russell
Linda M. Smith
Susan Snowden
Dorothea Spiegel
Wendy Richard Tanner
Carole Richard Thompson
Shirley Uphouse
J.C. Walkup
Cecily Hamlin Wells
Eleanor Lambert Wilson
Charlotte Wolf
Jane J. Young

Congratulations to Philip Sampson of Young Harris, Georgia whose photograph was chosen for the cover.
Katja Holmes formatted the manuscript and designed the book and the cover.

After release, this book will be available to book stores and individuals by contacting
Glenda Beall - writerlady21@yahoo.com

Check here later for pre-order options.

Here is Why it Takes Forever to Get Your Book Published

If anyone wonders why it takes months and sometimes more than a year to publish a book, please read this post. The author is Debra Dixon  of Bellebooks which published Maggie Valley, NC author, Kathryn Magendie's
novel, Tender  Graces.  I've followed Kathryn's blog as she wrote her first book, and kept her readers up to date on her publishing process.

On the post titled Why Does it Take So Long to Publish a Book, Debra gives us a list that is mind boggling and opens eyes to why it takes forever, after a writer finishes a manuscript, to get it into the hands of the reader.

Makes me even more appreciative of the work being done by Nancy Simpson and other members of NCWN West as we put together what promises to be an excellent anthology of work by writers living in and inspired by the southern Appalachian Mountains.

CLARENCE NEWTON WILL READ AT "COFFEE WITH THE POETS"

Coffee with the Poets was cancelled for Wed. the 13. CWP will meet on Wednesday, January 20 at 10:30 p.m. at Phillips and Lloyd Books in Hayesville, NC.

Clarence Newton of Hiawassee, Georgia will be the featured reader at Coffee with the Poets. Clarence puts both humor and wisdom into his writings. Once a guest writer for several newspapers, he has turned his love of writing toward poetry. He has studied under local poets Nancy Simpson and Betty Sellers . After a long career in aviation, Clarence now finds inspiration in the things of retirement, fishing, gardening, birding ect.

Please come for a morning of reading pleasure on Wednesday, January 13^th. Clarence will be followed by an open mic, an opportunity for anyone who would like, to read and share their work. Coffee with the Poets is sponsored by Netwest and hosted by Phillips and LLyod Book Shop on the square in Hayesville North Carolina. Coffee, tea and morning pastries are served for a small fee by Crumpets Dessertery.

CLOTHES LINES BOOK SIGNING

Local writers Nancy Sales Cash, Celia Miles (standing), Peg Russell, Brenda Kay Ledford, and Blanche Ledford (from left) whose work appeared in CLOTHES LINES attended a book signing on December 12, 2009 at the Curiosity Shop in downtown Murphy, NC. They thank all who attended to make the event a success.

NAZIM HIKMET POETRY FESTIVAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The Nazim Hikmet Poetry festival competition is now open. The closing date is Feb. 19, so begin to think about the poems you wish to submit. For more information about the Festival, please go to www.nazimhikmetpoetryfestival.org. I'd like to see some of our Netwest members entering this contest.

The second annual Nâzım Hikmet Poetry Festival will be held on Sunday, April 18, 2010 in Cary, North Carolina. As we bring together poets and poetry lovers, participation of area poets will be an essential part of this Festival. Interested poets are invited to submit their poems by Friday, February 19, 2010. The selected poems will be published on-line at the Festival web site as well as in the Festival Chapbook, and the poets will be invited to read their winning poems and introduce their poetry at the Festival. Each finalist will receive an award of $100. Last year's winning poems can be found at the festival web site.The 2009 festival chapbook is available at Amazon.com.

GENERAL RULES:

Deadline: Entries received by Friday, February 19, 2010 will be considered for selection.

Submission Requirements:

(*) All entries MUST be submitted via www.nazimhikmetpoetryfestival.org

(*) All poems submitted to the Festival must be unpublished, original works.

(*) Each poet can submit up to three poems.

(*) The poems should be in English.

(*) The selected poems will be published on-line at the Festival web site as well as in the Festival Chapbookl. By submitting their poems, the poets grant NHPF all rights to publish the poems at these venues.

(*) After the festival, the chapbook will be available for purchase at amazon.com. The proceeds from the chapbook sales will be used to support future festivals.

(*) The poets will retain copyrights of their poems.

Selection & Notification

(*) Submitted poems will be evaluated anonymously.

(*) The contact information provided by the poets will not be disclosed to other individuals or organizations.

(*) The poets will be notified of their poem’s status by March 22, 2010.

POETRY SELECTION COMMITTEE:

John Balaban, Professor of English, Poet-in-Residence, NC State University

Kathryn Stripling Byer, 2005-2009 NC Poet Laureate

Greg Dawes, Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, NC State University

Joseph Donahue, Senior Lecturing Fellow, Department of English, Duke University

Jackie Shelton Green, Piedmont Laureate

Hatice Örün Öztürk (ATA-NC Representative), Associate Professor, Department of ECE, NC State University

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS:

This event is organized by the American Turkish Association of North Carolina (www.ata-nc.org )

Organizing committee: Buket Aydemir, Pelin Balı, Erdag Göknar, Mehmet Öztürk, and Birgül Tuzlalı

Contact: contact@nazimhikmetpoetryfestival.org