Poetry | Chapter 16

Putting a Mustache on the Mona Lisa

Marilyn Kallet discusses the art of translating Benjamin Péret’s great work of Surrealist poetry, The Big Game

By Tristan Hickey | July 13, 2011

July 13, 2011 Marilyn Kallet, Lindsay Young Professor of English at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has always been interested in Surrealism, but translating Benjamin Péret’s The Big Game has proven the most challenging—and most rewarding—of her forays. Kallet will read from the book on July 17 at 3 p.m. at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville. Also reading will be poets Jeff Daniel Marion and Donna Doyle.

Listen

Blas Falconer reads from his latest book in a podcast on the Poetry Foundation’s website

By Tristan Hickey | June 27, 2011

June 27, 2011 Puerto Rico’s first murder. The Battle of Nashville. A dress blooming in the ocean. These are the images Nashville poet Blas Falconer offers listeners during a 2008 reading at the Art Institute of Chicago. In the program Falconer reads from his latest book, A Question of Gravity and Light (Arizona University Press, 2007).

"Mac"

By Linda Parsons Marion | June 16, 2011

June 16, 2011 Linda Parsons Marion is an editor at the University of Tennessee and the author of three poetry collections: Home Fires, Mother Land, and Bound. Marion’s work has appeared in journals such as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, and Connecticut Review, as well as in many anthologies. She lives in Knoxville with her husband, poet Jeff Daniel Marion. Linda Parsons Marion will read from Bound at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on June 19 at 3 p.m.

Living in Eternity

It took a cancer diagnosis to cure poet Wilmer Mills of discouragement and malaise

By Wilmer Mills | June 8, 2011

June 8, 2011 For the past ten years or so it seems that all I think about and write about is Time, but something about learning that I have a form of liver cancer that is ultimately incurable has given me an amazing sense of clarity about the subject. I find myself standing on the back porch taking deep breaths, intoxicated by air and light and hope. Despite my bleak prognosis, I now see everything in front of me as a space of infinite possibility, within certain limitations, with a full and nourishing sense of Time.

What Endures

Charles Wright’s career has yielded a body of work that will long outlive its creator

By Pablo Tanguay | June 7, 2011

June 7, 2011 In a career that spans forty-five years and includes twenty-some books of poetry and every major poetry prize, from the Pulitzer to the National Book Award, Charles Wright has kept his thematic lens remarkably focused. A typical poem begins with the speaker in his backyard, describing the landscape or the memory of a landscape, and the resulting metaphor then ignites a philosophical meditation, often concerning theological matters. For most poets, such thematic or stylistic repetition over the course of half a century would lead to unbearably boring poems. But Wright is in a class almost alone for his ability to make fresh, wildly inventive metaphors from the stuff of the everyday, natural world.

Dudes, Locked in a Dudely Power Struggle

Gallatin poet Elizabeth McClellan retells the story of Frankenstein’s second monster—and earns a Rhysling nomination in the process

By Margaret Renkl | June 3, 2011

June 3, 2011 “Anything So Utterly Destroyed” by Elizabeth McClellan, a Gallatin-based poet and University of Memphis law student, has been nominated for a 2011 Rhysling Award by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. The Rhysling is a prize given to the best science-fiction, fantasy, or horror poem published during the previous year.

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