Poetry | Chapter 16

Messing Around with Veracity

In a book that may or may not be a long essay, and may or may not be a collection of prose poems, T Fleishmann explores the nature of personal truth

By Susannah Felts | July 2, 2012

July 2, 2012 A hybrid of essay, prose poems, and art criticism, Syzygy, Beauty quietly dodges literary expectations and resists parsing. While the book chronicles a universal strain of story—the bumpy course of a complicated relationship, a love triangle—it does so through an entirely new, occasionally gorgeous script, in language that is both direct and oblique. “How to describe the indescribable might as well be the title of this blurb,” the writer Ander Monson, with whom Fleischmann has studied, writes. “[It] resists being fenced in.”

“You Are Where You Come From”

Poet, translator, and editor Don Share talks with Chapter 16 about his new book, the centennial year of Poetry magazine, and his Memphis roots

By Charlotte Pence | June 26, 2012

June 26, 2012 Memphis native Don Share, poet and senior editor of Poetry magazine, has recently released his third poetry collection. In Wishbone, Share energizes his well-crafted lines with wit and hard-wrestled emotional truths. Many of the poems in Wishbone reflect on the transient nature of life and our attempts to muddle our way through loss. As Share explains in an interview with Chapter 16, “We’re always using whatever strength we have to grasp things, to hold on, and sometimes to wave goodbye.”

“What We Know Every Moon Takes”

A new book features work by two former University of Memphis professors: poems by Gordon Osing and collages by Tom Carlson

By Osing and Carlson | June 1, 2012

June 1, 2012 Gordon Osing is retired from the writing program at the University of Memphis, where he started The River City Writers Series. He is the author of over a dozen books of both poetry and prose. Tom Carlson taught American literature and creative nonfiction at the University of Memphis for thirty-two years. He is the author of Hatteras Blues. The two will appear together at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis at 5:30 p.m. on June 7 to read from and sign copies of their recent collaboration, a collection of poetry and collage, La Belle Dame. The reading will begin at 6 p.m. Other books by both authors will also be available for signing.

"The Returning Dead"

To mark Memorial Day, Chapter 16 reprints Sewanee poet Wyatt Prunty’s memorable poem

By Wyatt Prunty | May 28, 2012

May 28, 2012 Wyatt Prunty, a native of Humboldt, Tennessee, is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently The Lover’s Guide to Trapping. His honors include fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. Founding director of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, he teaches creative writing at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

“Lily” and “October 13, 2006”

An unusual joint appearance at Nashville’s Scarritt-Bennett Center features paired poems—one each by Mitzi Cross and Malcolm Glass—on the same subject

By Cross and Glass | May 22, 2012

May 22, 2012 Mitzi Cross and Malcolm Glass are married poets living in Clarksville, Tennessee. Cross is an award-winning poet, playwright, and photographer, whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals, art galleries, and juried exhibits across the mid-South. Glass is a writer and photographer who has published five books of poems and several textbooks, including Bone Love, In the Shadow of the Gourd, and Important Words. The two will appear together on May 24 at Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville at 7 p.m.

“The Branches, the Axe, the Missing”

By Charlotte Pence | May 18, 2012

May 18, 2012 Charlotte Pence is a poet and critic who recently received her Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Tennessee. A regular Chapter 16 contributor, she is also the author of two award-winning chapbooks and the editor of The Poetics of American Song Lyrics (University Press of Mississippi, 2012). Her work has earned numerous Pushcart nominations, the Discovered Voices award, and a fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission. It has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Rattle, Tar River Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, and many other journals. Pence and her husband, Adam Prince, will read from their new books on May 19 at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville. The event begins at 2 p.m.

Camilla and the Caterpillars

By Frances Figart, illustrated by Matt Brass
Smokies Life
68 pages
$14.95

A young girl’s encounter with an extraordinary caterpillar in the Great Smoky Mountains leads her and her family on a quest to plant a national park right in their own backyard.

This environmentally themed chapter book for ages 6 through 11 introduces young readers to important ecological concepts including habitat loss and the interdependence of native species and offers a compelling grassroots solution through native-plant gardening that invites anyone to take part in addressing the growing biodiversity crisis.

~the publisher