Murfreesboro poet Gaylord Brewer whisks together recipe, memoir, and verse
June 26, 2015 With a subtitle—a “A Cookbook-Memoir, of Sorts”—Gaylord Brewer acknowledges that The Poet’s Guide to Food, Drink, & Desire resists easy categorization. And the “of sorts” quality is exactly what makes this collection of essays and recipes a must-read for home cooks who sometimes fancy themselves chefs who happen to have been spared the nuisance of a restaurant.
March 20, 2015Charlotte Pence is a poet and critic who received her Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Tennessee. The author of two chapbooks, she has just published her first full-length collection, Many Small Fires. Pence will read with Adam Prince on March 26, 2015, at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville; with Adam Day on March 27, 2015, at Belmont University in Nashville; and with Bradford Tice on March 30, 2015, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. All events are free and open to the public.
Kevin Young talks with Chapter 16 about poetry, food, music, and family
September 20, 2013 Whether he is talking about Modernism, blues singers, the slave ship Amistad, film noir, or one of many other subjects he has studied, Kevin Young—celebrated poet, essayist, and editor—writes poems and essays that simultaneously serve as portals to the past and future. Young will appear at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on September 26, 2013, at 7 p.m. in Wilson Hall, Room 126. The event is free and open to the public.
A new anthology of Appalachian literature celebrates mountain writers
June 10, 2013 The aptly titled Appalachian Gateway: An Anthology of Contemporary Stories and Poetry is meant to be less an exhaustive representation of the region’s great talents than an introduction that will draw more readers into the field. With a diverse and prize-winning group of writers including Nikki Giovanni, Barbara Kingsolver, Jeff Daniel Marion, Sharyn McCrumb, Ron Rash, Lee Smith, and Charles Wright, the collection will no doubt do that and more.
The University of Tennessee’s Arthur Smith has built a life centered on poetry
February 4, 2013 Poets are not immune to the rush of contemporary life. Too often, writing—even for a respected poet—comes to seem like an afterthought, the work that gets done when all other obligations are finally taken care of. The University of Tennessee’s Arthur Smith is the rare writer who eschews the noise of the world, sculpting a life of quiet contemplation. Smith is also a poet who offers the kind of deep yet accessible poems that readers seek but so rarely find. His fourth collection, The Fortunate Era, will be released February 26 by his longtime publisher, Carnegie Mellon University Press. Its bold, honest, lyrical reflections offer a respite from the noise of the world.
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Chase Twichell talks with Chapter 16 about practicing Zen and writing poetry in the world as it actually is
November 27, 2012 Author of seven books of poems, including a new and selected collection titled Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been), Chase Twichell applies her study of Buddhism to deliver well-chiseled, unsentimental poems that explore terrain not normally associated with Buddhist thought. Whether addressing hot-house irises, Dumpsters, or Chanel No. 5, her poems ponder questions that matter: what is the self, and why do we suffer? As a consequence, Twichell has been awarded many prestigious prizes, including the 2011 Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Award, which carries a $100,000 stipend, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Artists Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Chase Twichell will read from her work on November 29, in Vanderbilt’s Buttrick Hall, Room 101, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
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