Poet Shara Lessley gives public Reading March 26

Shara Lessley, author of the poetry compilation Two-Headed Nightingale, will give a public reading at Randolph College on March 26th at 8 p.m. in the Alice Ashley Jack Room as part of the Visiting Writer Series.

Lessley, the Anne Spencer Poet in Residence, will be at Randolph for four weeks. In addition to giving the public reading this Wednesday, she will teach a class with a focus on writing and poetry.

Photo by Lisa Beth Anderson

Lessley is a poet and teacher with a bachelor’s degree in dance and English from the University of California, Irvine and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Maryland. She sees a connection between the two disciplines.

“My training as a dancer influences the way I see syntax and the line. Elongation, contraction. Rhythm. Musicality. I'm very interested in the sentence as a muscle the poet flexes and points, in order to control pacing and speed,” Lessley said.

Lessley has been drawn to poetry since she was nine. “When I was nine, I encountered Dickinson's ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,’ and was completely gobsmacked,” she said. “Of course, I didn’t understand the poem fully, but I was overwhelmed by its weirdness, its mystery and music. It made me want to parade and stomp around in Dickinson's ’Boots of Lead’—a high mark of praise for a third grader, I suppose.”

Lessley draws her current inspiration for her poetry from her experience living in Amman, Jordan the past three years, a region she describes as “complex and rich.”

Among her other accomplishments, Lessley is also a former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University and the 2014 Mary Wood Fellow at Washington College.  Her work has been featured in The Rumpus Poetry Anthology and The Ecopoetry Anthology.

Lessley is Randolph College’s first Anne Spencer Poet in Residence. While the College has hosted poets and other writers for years, this position in the Visiting Writer Series was recently renamed to honor Anne Spencer, a Harlem Renaissance poet who lived not far from the College.

Randolph junior becomes poetry contest finalist, gets poem published

During its 50-year history, december magazine has published the early works of authors like short story writer Raymond Carver, the novelist Rita Mae Brown, five United States poet laureates, and six Pulitzer Prize winners. Hannah Cohen ’15 is happy to find herself in such good company.

“Filter,” a poem that Cohen wrote for a creative writing class at Randolph College will appear in december magazine later this year. It was one of three poems she submitted for the Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize, for which she was listed as a finalist.

“I sent them out on a whim. I didn’t really expect to hear back,” she said. “I wasn’t really that sad that I didn’t win. I think just having the chance to be published in a recognized magazine is great. It really excited me. It made me feel important.”

Cohen described “Filter” as a poem about “cigarettes, death, love, and art.” It begins with a speaker noticing cigarettes discarded on the side of the highway, moves on to memories of the speaker’s grandmother, references to the Greek myth of Pygmalion and the artist Michelangelo, and returns to the car and images of cigarettes.

Cohen, who transferred to Randolph last year, enjoys exploring the ways in which her favorite subjects—art history, writing, and religion—intertwine. She is majoring in art and English and minoring in religious studies.

She has enjoyed writing for a long time, but became more serious about it in high school. At Randolph, she has benefited from working with professors who helped her sharpen her talent and find motivation to write. “I feel like I got the criticism and revision from my professors that I wouldn't have had if I had gone somewhere else,” she said.

“Hannah’s poems are full of surprising imagery and syntactic energy. She also has a dedication to writing and the life of writing that is rare in undergraduates,” said Laura-Gray Street, the Randolph English professor who taught the class for which Cohen wrote “Filter.”

Street added that it is very significant that Cohen’s poem was accepted by december, considering the other poets who have gotten started there. “That kind of company can exert a strange kind of pressure on a developing writer, of course. But it can also serve as creative stimulus, which I hope and believe it will be for Hannah. I’m very proud of her!”

Counseling Center staff member wins statewide poetry award

A Randolph staff member has won the 2013 Library of Virginia Literary Award for Poetry.

The Library of Virginia presented the award to LuAnn Keener-Mikenas, a therapist in Randolph College’s Counseling Center, on Saturday. The award designates Keener-Mikenas’s latest collection of poems, Homeland, as the best book of poetry published by a Virginia author in 2012.

Keener-Mikenas was excited to learn of this honor. “I feel I’ve been working toward this since I was 10,” she said.

She started writing at about that age, but didn’t think of it as a career until much later, in college. “I remember pulling out this drawer full of poems, typing out eight of them, and giving them to the literary magazine,” she said. “They published all of them.”

Keener-Mikenas earned an MFA in creative writing at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville in 1986 and began teaching English at Virginia Tech that year. After about 10 years, she became a student again herself and earned a master’s degree in social work. Today, she provides counseling services part-time at Randolph, has her own private practice and also works with Centra hospice.

After publishing poems in many journals and magazines, and winning awards including a 1990 Virginia Prize, Keener-Mikenas’ first book, Color Documentary, was published in 1994. Many of these poems focus on family and growing up in a rural farming community in Texas. Others are about wildlife and her concern with environmental devastation.

In addition to more personal poems, Homeland contains cycles of poems inspired by wildlife photographs and by paintings documenting pioneers and pilgrims expanding west across the American landscape. “It’s about the landscape, the virgin territory of the Americas. It’s about what happened to that landscape and to the American dream,” Keener-Mikenas said. “Ultimately, it’s about how we are all one family. Earth is our homeland.”

Keener-Mikenas picked the title for Homeland long before the United States Department of Homeland Security was created. Although the meaning of the word “homeland” has shifted because of that association, she decided to keep the title. “In a way, that is what I’m talking about. Homeland security is about saving the planet, but saving it in an ecological and spiritual sense, not in a military sense,” she said.

The Library of Virginia Literary contacted Keener-Mikenas in August to notify her that she was a finalist for the statewide poetry award. She was excited, but also nervous—the other two finalists included a 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner Claudia Emerson and David Huddle, a well-established author who won the Library of Virginia prize for fiction in 2012. Winning the award gives her confidence for her next book of poems, which she is editing now.

This past weekend, Keener-Mikenas gave a poetry reading and panel presentation and participated in the awards gala in Richmond.

The Library of Virginia presents the annual awards to showcase and honor authors who write in Virginia, or write about Virginia topics. “Virginia is home to many authors whose works have enriched our lives and filled our libraries,” the state library’s website says. “The Library is proud to present the Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards as a way of thanking these authors and celebrating the power of the written word.”

Prize-winning poet begins Visiting Writer series on Wednesday

Just last week, Patricia Smith won the award for writing the best poetry book published in 2012. This week, Smith will be reading some of that prize-winning poetry at Randolph College.

Smith will open Randolph’s 2013-2014 Visiting Writer Series with a public reading at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Jack Lounge in Smith Memorial Hall.

“Patricia Smith is a force of nature, as a writer, as a teacher, as a performer,” said Laura-Gray Street, an English professor and the director of the Visiting Writer Series. “Her mojo is artistic precision and profundity with a Motown jive, making her the perfect opener for the fall Visiting Writers Series.”

Smith is the author of six books of poetry, including Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, which won the Lenore Marshall Prize last week. She is the most successful poet in the history of the National Poetry Slam, winning that poetry performance contest four times.

The Randolph College English department also will take some time Wednesday to celebrate the College’s partnership with the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum. Shaun Spencer-Hester, the granddaughter of Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer and president of the museum, will attend the event.

“Spencer’s poetry and presence left a vital legacy both in Lynchburg and in national history,” Street said. “Bringing together these two energies—Patricia Smith and Anne Spencer—for Wednesday’s reading and celebration will be powerful.”

The Visiting Writer Series brings authors to campus throughout the year to talk about their craft with students and give public readings. All visiting writer readings are free and open to the public.

Environmental poetry anthology garners great reviews

A poetry anthology co-edited by Randolph English professor Laura-Gray Street has been generating great reviews and conversations about the environment.

The Ecopoetry Anthology includes hundreds of poems about nature and the environment. The poems date from the mid-nineteenth century to today and include poets such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, and Muriel Rukeyser. Street compiled the anthology with Ann Fisher-Wirth, a poet and professor at the University of Mississippi. The poet Robert Haas wrote an introduction, and Trinity University Press published the book in February.

The book has drawn significant interest and praise in reviews. “It’s a must-read for everyone concerned with our disappearing environment,” said one reviewer.

“Poetry might not derail the course we’re on, but the poems gathered here just might soothe what ails us,” stated another reviewer, who added that the anthology does a good job of portraying the way poetry responded to growing understanding of the world and the impacts human activity has on nature. “These poets wrestled with the radical shift in consciousness brought on by scientific breakthroughs, and promoted astonishing growth in the field of poetics.”

 “I’ve always thought poetry could change the world,” a third reviewer wrote. “With the best energies of Robert Hass, Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street, and these assembled poets, I believe we have a chance.”

Street and Fisher-Wirth recently gave interviews that have been published in Poecology and Orion Magazine.

Street said that a substantial amount of her work on the anthology was completed during the Randolph College Summer Research program with the assistance of Ashley Hale ’08 and Anneka Freeman ’10.

New English professor publishes poem on first day teaching at Randolph

Gary Dop had good news to share on his first day teaching at Randolph College.

Dop learned today that a literary journal at Iowa State University just published his poem “The Last Thoughts of the Dying Girl.”

Dop wrote the poem for a series of persona poems that center around a murder. The poems are written from the viewpoints of a variety of people, such as the mother of the murder victim or the manager of her apartment complex. “The poem imagines the fractured thoughts of this girl as she's dying,” Dop wrote in a description of the poem. “I wanted what she said to mean nothing and everything, to sway between the moment and the dream of the moment, the dream of life.  I hoped it would be somewhat incoherent but to convey the gravity of the impending grave.”

You can read the poem here in Flyway.

Dop, an English professor, joins Randolph College after serving as the writer-in-residence at North Central University and the screenwriting faculty member in the University of Minnesota’s master of fine arts program. In addition to writing poetry, Dop dabbles in screenwriting, comedy, nonfiction, and playwriting. Father, Child, Water, his first book of poetry, will be published by Red Hen Press.

Poetry Tree Tradition Marks Arrival of Spring

You can always tell when spring has arrived. Green grass. Singing birds. Bare feet. And the Poetry Tree.

Every spring, the weeping cherry tree between the corner of Main Hall and the Sundial sprouts green leaves, pink blossoms and verse. Students and faculty use ribbon to hang copies of their original and favorite poems to the tree’s branches.

Jim Peterson, an accomplished poet, playwright, novelist, and Randolph English professor, likes the tradition. “Poems and creativity are as organic to our lives as leaves are to trees. The impulse to shape our thoughts and feelings into a written form that can be shared is one that many people have, and the poetry tree provides them with a non-academic, non-threatening way to do it. And besides, it's just fun.”

Like the origin of many campus traditions, the history of the poetry tree is a bit mysterious.

Retired professor Mary Brewer Guthrow ‘65 places it back as far as the 1960s. “My best memory is that my professor, Margaret Raynal, hung the ‘Loveliest of Trees’ by A.E. Housman out there every year and then other poems from other poem-hangers appeared.” 

Like spring blossoms, however, the beauty is short lived. When the rains came this year, the ink ran, obscuring the words. If you look closely, though, you can still make out a phrase on one stained parchment... “Vita Abundantior.”

Maya Angelou inspires at Randolph College

Maya Angelou encouraged more than 1,000 listeners at Randolph College to discover poetry and see how “it has kept us alive.”

Angelou, a famous poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist, spent about an hour Tuesday night telling stories from her life and reciting poems that are meaningful to her. The audience laughed and cried as she shared stories of humor, despair, and hope.

“You need to know the poetry. You need to have it in your hands,” she said. “The poetry you read has been written for you—each of you.”

John E. Klein, president of Randolph College, gives Maya Angelou a copy of a book about the garden
of Anne Spencer, a well-known African American poet who lived not far from the College.

The College hosted Angelou Tuesday, January 29, so Randolph students and others from the community could learn from the experiences and wisdom she would share. Smith Memorial Hall was packed with Randolph students, faculty, and staff; students from area schools, and the greater Lynchburg community as well as visitors from outside of Lynchburg.

Angelou encouraged them to go to a library and find a book of poetry, particularly poetry by African Americans. She specifically recommended Paul Laurence Dunbar, and she recited his poem “Sympathy,” from whose lines she drew the titles for several books, including I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

She told the humorous story behind her lighthearted poem “The Health Food Diner,” and she talked of her love for the works of William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. The audience cheered with delight and laughter as she demonstrated how Poe’s “The Raven” should be recited like a rap lyric.

Angelou reflected on the privilege of being able to give hope and knowledge to others through her writing. “When you know, you can teach. When you get, you can give,” Angelou said. “I used to think I’m a writer who can teach; I've found I’m a teacher who can write.”

Randolph students were delighted to see and hear Angelou. Cameron Hall ’13 was impressed with the friendliness and graciousness Angelou exhibited. “My favorite part was the general feeling that Maya Angelou was as happy and excited to see us as we were to see her,” he said.

Grace Gardiner ’15 enjoyed hearing Angelou recite poetry. “To hear her able to recall powerful words and images from memory, as well as boom out these words and images in a voice so deep and thoughtful as her own, was a true treat,” she said.

Katie West-Hazlewood ’13 appreciated how Angelou tailored her comments towards College students and other young members of the audience. “She recognized that we are going through struggles, but assured us that others have, too; therefore we would be able to get through it as well,” she said. “We are at such a transitional point in our lives and hearing that was very inspiring.”

Bunny Goodjohn wins poetry prize

Bunny Goodjohn teaches English, writes poetry
and fiction, and recently won a poetry prize

Bunny Goodjohn ’04 answered what she thought was a routine phone call, only to find out about an exciting honor she had not expected.

“I answered the phone and discovered I was on a conference call with the Reed Magazine editorial staff,” said Goodjohn, who teaches English and directs the College’s writing program and tutoring services. “The editor told me the good news.”

Goodjohn learned that she had won the Edwin Markham Prize for Poetry, a prize sponsored by Reed Magazine and San Jose State University. The award comes with a $1,000 prize and publication in the magazine. Then the editors added to her surprise and delight by reading the remarks that the contest’s judge, Kim Addonizio, had written about Goodjohn’s work. (Addonizio is a poet whose work Goodjohn admires.)

Addonizio praised Goodjohn for “an ability to tell a story not just for the sake of narrative, but to get at a deeper truth; sentences that were complex and layered, as well as musical; and a sense of real presence on the page.”

“To have her consider my work and find it worthy is such a tremendous honor,” Goodjohn said.

Goodjohn submitted several poems to the contest, including two that she wrote during graduate school, one that she wrote after a camping trip in West Virginia two years ago, and one inspired by Paula Rego’s painting Family. The newest poem she entered, titled “Running 24 North,” came to her after she saw two stray dogs stop traffic outside Rustburg, Virginia.

Goodjohn studied writing and wrote a novel during her time at Randolph, and then she completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Southern Maine. She then returned to the College as an English professor.

Her work has also been published in The Cortland Review (in 2002 and again in 2004), The Texas Review, Connecticut Review, and Zone 3.

David Caplain to read poetry at Randolph College

David Caplan will read from his poetry on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010 at 8 p.m. in Jack Lounge of Smith Hall on the campus of Randolph College.

Caplan specializes in 20th- and 21st-century American literature. His scholarly interests include poetics and contemporary poetry. His published works include Questions of Possibility: Contemporary Poetry and Poetic Form (Oxford University Press 2004; paperback 2006) Poetic Form: An Introduction (Longman, 2006), and In the World He Created According to His Will (poems) (University of Georgia Press / VQR Poetry Series, 2010).

He serves as a contributing editor to the Virginia Quarterly Review and Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing, and an affiliated researcher (Chercheur Affilié) at the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Poétique Appliquée at the University of Liège where he was a Fulbright lecturer.