Poetry | Chapter 16

All Together Now

A Chapter 16 writer considers the collective spirit of the Southern Festival of Books

By Maria Browning | October 10, 2014

October 10, 2014 The Southern Festival of Books is big, varied, and one of the most inclusive cultural events around. Chapter 16’s Maria Browning considers the special pleasure of the festival’s collective spirit. The twenty-sixth annual Southern Festival of Books will take place in Nashville October 10-12, 2014, at Legislative Plaza and the Nashville Public Library. All festival events are free and open to the public.

This Is Your Brain on Metaphor

Patricia Lockwood brings her mind-bending poems to the Southern Festival of Books

By Steve Haruch | October 1, 2014

October 1, 2014 Patricia Lockwood’s Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals is at times gut-punch funny, and it is wildly inventive throughout, but the book’s center of gravity is “Rape Joke,” the poem that went viral last year. Lockwood will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 10-12, 2014. All festival events are free and open to the public.

“First Words”

By Amy Billone | September 26, 2014

September 26, 2014 Amy Billone is a poet and a scholar who has published widely in both creative and academic journals. Her poetry collection, The Light Changes, was named a best book of the year in 2013 by Kirkus Reviews and won the 2014 IndieReader Discovery Award in Poetry. Billone, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, will give a free public reading at the University of Tennessee’s Hodges Library on September 29, 2014, at 7 p.m.

A Vision of Redemption

In Zion, poet TJ Jarrett explores the fierce possibilities of love and forgiveness

By Maria Browning | September 19, 2014

September 19, 2014 The poems in TJ Jarrett’s stunning second collection, Zion, are shaped by the desire to summon mercy and forgiveness in the face of terrible wrong, and they celebrate, without a trace of sentimentality, the sustaining power of love. TJ Jarrett will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 26, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. and again at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 10-12, 2014.

Officially a Genius

Poet-translator Khaled Mattawa has won a MacArthur grant

By Margaret Renkl | September 19, 2014

September 19, 2014 Let’s just go ahead and call 2014 Khaled Mattawa’s year: in January he was appointed chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and now he has been named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. What this most recent honor means in lay terms: Mattawa has just won a $625,000 “genius” grant.

“A Myth that Changes with Every Retelling”

By Jeff Hardin | August 22, 2014

August 22, 2014 Jeff Hardin is the author of two collections of poetry: Fall Sanctuary, recipient of the Nicholas Roerich Prize, and Notes for a Praise Book. His third collection, Restoring the Narrative, received the Donald Justice Poetry Prize and will be published in 2015. He is professor of English at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, Tennessee. Hardin will give a free public reading at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville on August 28, 2014, at 6 p.m.

Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

By Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
Seal Press
304 pages
$30

“Within these pages, I found my abuela, my tías and my primas — laughing, crying, and nodding alongside me. This book is a gift of understanding, and loving one’s family, even when our families are complicated and painful. It’s a beautiful reminder of the power of storytelling and the profound connection of kinship.”

~ Paola Mendoza, author, organizer and filmmaker