Writing at Centrum

Santificum

In the summer of 2008, poet and novelist Chris Abani read to a standing-room only house from a new work in progress.

Many of the poems that he read have just been released in a new book, "Santificum", by Copper Canyon Press.

"In this book-length sequence of linked poems, Abani bravely travels the charged intersections of atrocity and love, politics and religion, and loss and renewal," notes the Press. "With language of devastating beauty and complexity, he investigates conflicted personal history and political tragedy, and how the human body fares against both."

Although Chris Abani's fiction workshop at the 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference is completely sold out, with a waiting list started, there are still ways to enjoy his work. Abani will be giving a free craft lecture at 4 pm on Monday, July 19, and will present a reading on Saturday, July 24, at 7:30 pm.

Registration for all available Conference workshops is available here, as well as by calling Centrum at 360.385.3102, x131. 

For Conference prose options, morning workshop faculty members include nonfiction writer Bich Minh Nguyen (leading a master class) and fiction writer Peter Orner.

Two New Options at the 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference

Some rather excellent news to report: We have added two new faculty members to the 2010 Port Townsend Writers Conference--Copper Canyon Press poet Erin Belieu and fiction writer Peter Orner.

Class descriptions will be forthcoming, but registration is open by calling 360.385.3102, x131.

Although perhaps best known for his novel "The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo," Peter Orner is one of the finest short-story writers in the country. His story "The Raft" was selected for inclusion in the Best American Short Stories of 2001 by Barbara Kingsolver, and work has appeared in The Atlantic and the Paris Review, among other venues. "The Raft" is being made into a movie starring Ed Asner. Registration for this workshop is also available here. 

Erin Belieu is the author of three collections of poetry. The first, Infanta (Copper Canyon Press, 1995), was selected by Hayden Carruth for the National Poetry Series and was named one of the ten best books of 1995 by Library Journal, and Washington Post Book World. Her second collection, One Above and One Below (Copper Canyon Press, 2000), won the Ohioana Award and the Society of Midland Authors Award. Her third book is Black Box (Copper Canyon Press 2006).

Ambivalent Light: The Work of Dana Levin

One of the many exciting things about the 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference will be the presence of Copper Canyon Press poet Dana Levin, the author of "In the Surgical Theatre" and "Wedding Day."

Dana Levin, who will be leading a poetry workshop combining the workshopping of existing poems with the generation of new work, saw her first collection, "In the Surgical Theatre", receive the 1999 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize, the John C. Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares, the 2000 Wytter Bynner Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2003 PEN/Osterweil Award.

Her most recent book is 2005's "Wedding Day". Levin is the recipient of numerous honors, and she teaches in the MFA prgram at Warren Wilson College and directs the creative writing program at College of Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Here is an excerpt from her poem "Ambivalent Light": "I was telling Doctor C. about the dream of throwing the ashtray at my/mother and feeling the ashes inside it and he said 'The ashes inside?'/and I thought how the ashtray had been oddly shaped, almost like a womb,/and I said 'I was throwing the womb back at her,' and I was delighted--"

Levin's workshop title is "Poetry and the Unconsious". Her class description is available here.

Registration is available here, as well as by calling 360.385.3102, x117 or 360.385.3102, x131. We're also available to assist you with any questions or place you in the most appropriate workshop option.

Fiction Options at the 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference

Along with nonfiction workshops (Denise Chávez will be leading a generative writing workshop, Bich Minh Nguyen will be leading a master class, and Tom Miller will be leading a travel-writing class) and poetry options (the workshops of Martín Espada and Copper Canyon Press poet Dana Levin are nearly sold out); the fiction workshops at this year's Port Townsend Writers' Conference will also be stellar, featuring Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Ana Menéndez, and Chris Abani, who has only one space left in his workshop.

Micheline Aharonian Marcom (pictured right) is the author of four novels: “Three Apples Fell from Heaven,” “The Daydreaming Boy,” “The Mirror in the Well,” and “Draining the Sea.” She received her MFA degree from Mills College, where she currently teaches. She is also one of Goddard College's most popular instructors.

Micheline Aharonian Marcom's Class Description: "In this workshop we will read a number of short pieces by authors from all over the world and explore in short creative responses to those pieces how a writer’s “voice” emerges over time through reading, experimentation, practice, and by the allowing of influence by other writers. We will have lively discussions about the stories we read, share written work with the group, and discuss the various elements which make for good writing. Some of the writers we will read include Clarice Lispector, Bruno Schulz, Taduesz Borowski, Marguerite Duras, and Ernest Hemingway. All you’ll need for the class is a certain wildness of mind and a desire to experiment with your work."

The Port Townsend Writers' Conference is an intense, week-long full-immersion experience in the writing life. Registration is available here, as well as by calling 360.385.3102, x117 or 360.385.3102, x131. We're also available at that final extension to assist you with any questions or help you decide on the most appropriate option.

Registration Countdown: Four Days

Registration for the 2010 Port Townsend Writers' Conference opens in fewer than four days from now: on November 9, at 9 am. Registration will be available online here as well as by calling 360.385.3102, x131 or 117 if the first extension is busy.

One workshop that I'm particularly excited about this year is the generative fiction workshop with Ana Menéndez. Check out her class description:

“Van Gogh Story Marathon”
Have you ever seen Van Gogh’s early drawings? They were terrible. How did he become one of the most celebrated artists of the modern era? Practice. Study. Practice. And then more practice. In this course, we will take heed, writing a story a day. The opening line will be given to you the day before. The following day, you must come to class with a fully-formed story with a beginning, middle and end. No experimental stuff. Straight, traditional story. Though these will be shorties: just six hundred words. No more, no less. To inspire you and prove she can take her own medicine, the instructor will work along with you. In class, we will discuss the stories and do reading and exercises designed to help you imagine and produce excellent shorties. What to bring to class: a pen, a notebook, a number two pencil, an eraser and an 8 x 11 drawing pad – doesn’t have to be fancy, just something you can draw on.

Other workshops will feature such writers as Chris Abani, a master-class workshop with Bich Minh Nguyen, a poetry workshop with Copper Canyon Press poet Dana Levin, and a travel-writing workshop with Tom Miller.

Afternoon workshop faculty members includes Wendy Call, Sam Ligon, Susan Landgraf, Susan Rich, Deborah Poe, Lana Ayers, Kelli Russell Agodon, Maya Jewell Zeller, Tamara Sellman, Sayantani Dasgupta, Kitty Hoffman, Stan Rubin, and Lindsay Wilson, with more continuing to be added.

Poet Gary Lilley to Read at Wheeler Theater

Poet Gary Lilley, who has been in-residence in the Port Townsend schools since January 16, will capstone his visit with a public reading at the Joseph F. Wheeler Theater on Saturday, January 31, at 7 pm.

Lilley, a Copper Canyon Press poet, is the author of four books: Black Poem, Alpha Zulu, The Reprehensibles, and The Subsequent Blues.

Lilley has been a poet-in-residence at WritersCorps, Young Chicago Authors, and The Poetry Center of Chicago, and received the DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. He teaches Creative Writing at Warren Wilson College.

The reading is free.

Letter from Havana

By David Romtvedt

"Missionaries"

In June I was in Havana as part of a four piece band that included my friends Mona and Ryc, and my daughter Caito.  We were traveling under the auspices of Cuba AyUUda, a First Unitarian Church of Portland program meant to build mutual understanding between Cubans and Americans.  The problem with going to Cuba to build understanding is that the United States government has for nearly fifty years conducted a blockade against Cuba that includes forbidding travel to that country by US citizens.  So if you’re American you can’t go to Cuba to do anything. 

But there are loopholes.  The U.S. Treasury department authorizes certain travel “licenses.”  Americans can go to Cuba to attend international conferences, do academic research, or carry out cultural, educational, and religious projects.  Or they used to be able to.  The administration of George W. Bush canceled almost all licenses except those granted to church groups engaged in full time evangelical missionary work.

5/26: Ted Kooser Reading

Ted Kooser—Pulitzer Prize-winner and former Poet Laureate of the United States—will give a reading with award-winning Michigan poet Dan Gerber at the Joseph F. Wheeler Theater on Saturday, May 26, at 7 pm. Tickets will be available at the door thirty minutes before the reading begins. For more information on Ted and Dan, visit Copper Canyon Press.

Arthur Sze On Ancient Inca and Chinese Narratives

A poet is above all else passionate about language. And quipus have been my recent vehicle to explore what language can do.

The eleventh edition of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines a quipu as “a device made of a main cord with smaller varicolored cords attached and knotted and used by the ancient Peruvians (as for calculating).” The word quipu is from Quechua and means knot.  

I became interested in quipus many years ago when I discovered that quipus might encode language. In my last book, Quipu (Copper Canyon Press, 2005), I was interested in harnessing dyed strings of language along with forms of knotting. One form of knotting, it seemed to me, could be simple anaphoric repetition. In the next-to-last section of “Didyma,” I used the word “because” fifteen times to initiate a series of causes, then I used a section divider to create a gap before presenting fifteen different effects. Because no cause leads clearly to a subsequent effect, no one is able to see the universal nexus of causes and effects.

In the title poem, “Quipu,” I employed a different form of knotting where the word “as” is used again and again, with varying meanings. The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary lists three meanings of “as” as an adverb and eight meanings of “as” as a conjunction. I utilized the word “as” in each of its possible meanings and then revealed them in section seven. My wife, the poet Carol Moldaw, studied with Robert Fitzgerald at Harvard and has often mentioned how he talked about “elegant variation” as a means to create rich layers in poetry. I thought of repetition with a twist and consciously worked with this polysemous form of knotting when I kept repeating the word “as.”