August 1, 2011 Wilmer Mills, 41, a Tennessee poet with ties to Sewanee and Chattanooga, died on June 25 of liver cancer. He leaves behind a wife, two young children, and many family members and dear friends. Among them is poet Jeff Hardin, his friend and writing partner of two decades. Within twenty-hours of Mills’s passing, Hardin wrote this remembrance.
July 21, 2011 Fresh from sold-out shows in New York City and an unprecedented award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Minton Sparks continues to pursue a literary art form she invented from scratch. Now this genre-defying performance poet, songwriter, and novelist—whose fans and collaborators include Dorothy Allison, Marshall Chapman, and John Prine—is back home in Nashville, but already she’s got her eye on Broadway.
July 19, 2011 Memphis native Richard Tillinghast has been traveling the globe and writing critically acclaimed poetry for more than four decades. Recently returned to the United States after several years in Ireland, Tillinghast answered questions from Chapter 16 about his various roles as poet, translator, critic, and citizen of the world. Tillinghast will give a reading on September 27 at the University of Memphis, followed by an interview on September 28. He will also appear at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 14-16.
Poet Diann Blakely, a graduate of both the University of the South and Vanderbilt University, begins this week on a great note: The Chronicle of Higher Education has just featured her poem “Dead Shrimp Blues” at its Arts & Academe blog. The poem is part of her collection-in-progress, Rain in Our Door, a series of “duets” with blues artist Robert Johnson.
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.
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).
