Download - Words Matter Spring 2012
Connect with Literary Arts online!
› Visit literary-arts.org
› Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/literaryarts
› Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/literaryarts
› Get news about Oregon writers and readers: paperfort.blogspot.com
Literary Arts Pairs with PNCAfor Inaugural Graphic Lit Prize
The pencil has at least two functions: making words and making images. Both
functions involve movement—sometimes a rapid and sometimes a more slow,
drawn-out movement. Those
two kinds of making, word and
image, become visible through
“to draw.” Look up draw in the
Oxford English Dictionary and
you’ll discover some surprises. For
one thing, beginning in the ninth
full of movement, and means, quite
simply and generally, to pull some
stylus across the surface of a piece of paper or parchment. Chaucer uses draw,
some two hundred years later, in the late sixteenth century, does the word draw
refer to images.
MATTER
Words from the Director › 2
The Meaning of an Oregon Literary Fellowship › 3
Verselandia! › 4
Oregon Book Awards Author Tour › 6
A Poem by Emily Kendal Frey › 9
To draw is thus a process; it implies a rendering and an unfolding—a drawing
out—and thus inherently speaks of both narrating and sketching, but oddly
sixteenth century, for the idea of drawing to become an object, a sketch, in need
of a frame. By the twentieth century words and images meet in a most lively and
radical, startlingly new way, one that encourages us to pause in our looking as we
You Are a Writer
news of the award was a congratulatory
winners, Michael McGregor, who had
been my advisor in the writing program at
to know when my book would be on the
shelves in the children’s room at Powell’s.
Conversations with my son often veer
along unpredictable lines. This morning,
he asked, “Mom, have you been working
on this book ever since you were a little
up from the back seat, clearly impressed.
be missionaries at a small, under-funded
“PNCA is proud to forge this partnership with Literary Arts in offering the inaugural Graphic Literature Award.”
2
By supporting Literary Arts you helped:
Words from the DirectorGreat books are not inevitable. Great books are the product of years (sometimes a lifetime) of work by a
brilliant writer, the support of family and friends, and the keen eye of an editor to pluck it from a pile of
manuscripts and have the courage to publish it so that it may have readers. Great books are the product
of a supportive community.
Throughout history, people and organizations have formally taken on the role of trying to ensure the
original vision.
sizes throughout the state.
downtown center that includes our own event space, making it easier for us to host and promote local
of the community: individuals, foundations, agencies, and businesses who share the value that books and writers matter. Together, we can
ensure a rich and creative future for Oregon.
[email protected] Literary Arts is funded in part by:
MATTER
3
these fragile, maddening, ridiculous,
messy, affectionate, beloved creatures.
My six-year-old asked me recently,
“Mom, is it true that it sometimes takes
are a LOT longer than kid pages, but yes,
sometimes it takes me an entire day to
great deal of pity and said, “That’s why
writer, carry awkwardly. There are rare,
sentence and be able to say, “Damn that’s
good,” but there are uncounted hours and
at a homeless shelter, teaching kids to
read, ripping the ivy out of Forest Park?
a very humbling and giddy experience
to be lifted out of self-imposed solitude,
even for an evening, and be told that
yes, your work matters, yes, the self-
absorption is worth it, don’t give up,
keep writing, even if what there is to
say has already been said, once or twice,
or several times, by those whom one
cannot hope to emulate (as the wise and
morose T. S. Eliot so sagely put it).
we have all read a book that made us
understand that we were not alone in
conscious adolescent stuck on that same
isn’t it, how quickly a paradise can turn
into a prison when you’re fourteen
“I suspect we have all read a book that made us understand that we were not alone in the world.”
and miserable?), books quite literally
other people in the world like me, even
hospital in a forgotten green valley, not
far from where Columbus sank the Santa
Maria. My father, a farmer, preached
the gospel of trees (the deforestation in
my mother, a Pied Piper of inexhaustible
enthusiasm, taught at the missionary
skinned knees and dirty elbows, the
television or internet. Once a week, the
missionary plane delivered six-week-
the tree-climbing competition at the
circulation twelve. My teacher, Suzette,
who wore lion tamer boots and a bow tie
book to her.
The reality, of course, is that wanting to be
an audience for those same masterpieces
graduate from college with a degree in
English lit, there are no recruiters lined
harrowing, lonely work to wrestle with
hours each day—if we’re lucky—alone.
deprivation of the senses and if we do not
get our weekly quota of silence, we can
be hell to live with (just ask my absurdly
supportive husband).
Motherhood and writing often feel
like competing vocations—books, like
children, demand one’s full attention—
children for hours at a time to write.
learned, through my children, how
from “You Are a Writer”
4
The Power of Poetry: Verselandia 2012
Magical, hilarious, crushing,
raucous, thought-provoking, joyful,
sorrowful, powerful, unforgettable…
these are just a few descriptions of
Made possible through a strong
partnership between PPS high school
Slam Champion and Pushcart Prize
Slams are spoken-word competitions
where poets perform brief original
works with no props, music,
or costumes. Judges score the
performances, and the highest
cumulative score after two rounds
wins. Qualifying slams were held
at every high school in the Portland
Public Schools District, with the top
three students from each moving on
Diversity was evident as competing
poets bared their souls for more than
moved by the honesty and bravery
of the performers, whose themes
included: pride, loss, pain, family,
identity, relationships won, and
relationships lost. Students interacted
and supported each other without
the slightest hint of rivalry—on stage
it was just the performance that
mattered.
Though everyone who took the stage
Dianne Bocci, US Bank and Julie
Mancini.
Laughter, tears, cheers, and standing
ovations abounded, but in the end,
the lasting impact of this amazing
and memorable evening may not
only have been on the performers or
it may have been on the hundreds
of students who participated along
the way—students touched by
new understandings of their peers,
excited by the power of poetry, and
inspired to compete next year in
Nancy Sullivan, Verselandia Visionary, is the teacher-librarian at Madison High School in Portland, Oregon. She can be reached at [email protected].
Verselandia 2012 Winners:1st placeLauren Steele, Jefferson
2nd place
3rd placeMicah Fletcher, Madison
4th place
5th placeDesiree DuBois, Jefferson
For photos and video of the event visit:
http://verselandia.wordpress.com.
MATTER
5
move forward in our reading. Critics
have chosen to call this particular
stop-and-go genre, The Graphic
most resembles a stroll, an amble
through a dense and interesting
neighborhood where we take but
one or two steps when, suddenly,
something catches our attention. The
graphic novel thus creates a marvelous
tension as it pushes readers forward
while at the same time making them
pause, just for a moment—arresting
the attention—on a frame, or a bit
PNCA Graphic Literature Award
of action, or even a line. There goes
language again: line can mean the
curve in a character’s face, or it might
refer to a sentence uttered by that
same character, image and word
collapsing, one more time, right before
provokes a line or two of prose, but
most often a line that we hear only
most pointedly in this hybrid form,
for even the word graphic refers, of
course, to the drawing itself and, at
the same time, to the precise details of
the written descriptions: “Your writing
is so graphic!”
Oh, how thoroughly the graphic novel
thoroughly, to mix genres and forms
until we begin to puzzle just how to
navigate that little book in our hands.
Should we read all the way through,
from beginning to end, or should we
pause and look—no, inspect—every
picture as it presents itself to us in
form—Spiegelman, Moebius, Otomo,
Mignola, Sacco, and on and on—arrest
us and take us on a halting journey of
unknowing, but an unknowing that
we learn to savor and love—and even
imagination as we re-evaluate our own.
as we ponder our own self-imposed
boundaries. Looking, and then seeing
with different eyes—what we call
reading—promotes a peculiar kind of
critical thinking in this crazy, mixed-
more accurately, the graphite novel,
the pencil reigns supreme: the prince
form we can watch the reader/thinker
falling seemingly into seamless cahoots
with the artist/writer.
is a nineteenth-century corruption of
cohort, a companionship of diverse
folks, or a partnership between those
novel offers the model of a community
of one, a display of multiple talents—
drawing and writing, composing and
inking—founded in a single person.
we draw, we write silently to ourselves.
Those activities overlap, crisscross,
dance and interplay one with another.
college that prides itself on “making
marks” out at the edges and in between
forge this partnership with Literary
New York Times’ lead food writer and author of How to Cook Everything and Food Matters
Mark Bittman September 20, 2012
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall Tickets available through Ticketmaster
In association with
Feast Portland, Literary Arts
proudly presents
6
Oregon Book Awards Author Tour Visits Southern Oregon
Tour traveled to Klamath Falls and
County Library, and the Tour also
included author visits to two schools
in Chiloquin, two schools in Klamath
Falls, and free writing workshops at
the Klamath County Library.
grade class at Ferguson Elementary
School and led the students in a
workshop on voice in writing.
Students also asked Jen questions
about her book Putting Makeup On Dead People, her inspirations and her
path to publication. Jen also visited
three classes at Chiloquin Elementary
miles outside of Klamath Falls.
Library and visited Ponderosa Junior
both offered free writing workshops
workshop attendee at George’s
workshop commented afterwards,
“One of the outstanding features of
the workshop was George’s helpful
comments for each individual who
workshop feeling inspired.” Jen and
George also appeared in a reading at
and Coos Bay for more workshops,
readings, and school visits.
This program was made possible in part by a grant from Oregon Humanities (OH),
Endowment for the Humanities, which funds OH’s grant program.
The deadline for the next Oregon Book Awards isAugust 31, 2012.
For application and information visit: literary-arts.org/oba-home/apply/awards
possible by my Fellowship from
book contract with Free Press for a
Suzette if she remembered telling me
when the writing life has felt—as it
often does—impossibly daunting
thought that if she could see in me,
at eight years old, a little girl who
loved sentences, then perhaps she was
Schools or one of the other Literary
a frustrated teenage boy will have
the opportunity to hear, “You are a
and it will be their book that we’ll be
celebrating in another few decades.
Apricot Irving’s memoir about growing up as a missionary’s daughter in Haiti is forthcoming from Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.
from “You Are a Writer”
INDIVIDUALS
We are grateful to our community of supporters.The following people made a contribution to Literary Arts between April 1, 2011 and March 31, 2012.
8
MATTER
9
Birds Are So Soft
Birds are so soft.
You can’t imagine.
gentle, not hard, they love it.
They get pin feathers.
They coo, close their eyes,
and coo. You’ll see.
They’ll melt in your hand. You will see.
You’ll have a whole new set of sounds
you can make with your mouth.
From The Grief Performance
(Cleveland State University
10
BUSINESSES
FOUNDATIONS & GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
ENDOWMENT FUNDS
VOLUNTEERS & INTERNS
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
MATTER
11
BOARD
STRUNK & WHITE SOCIETY
OREGON BOOK AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS ADVISORY COMMITTEE
PATRON ADVISORY COMMITTEE
STAFF
We thank our program sponsors
CONTACT US:
925 SW WASHINGTON STREET, PORTLAND, OR 97205
MATTER
Writers in the Schools
Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships
Portland Arts & Lectures
Delve: Readers’ Seminars
2012/2013 Season Thursday, October 11 Jeffrey Toobin
Friday, November 16Barbara Kingsolver Thursday, January 10Jonathan Franzen Tuesday, March 5Stephen Greenblatt Tuesday, April 23Nikky Finney tickets at literary-arts.org/box-office
The programs of
Literary Arts