‘Next Poetry Festival’ coming up March 21-22 in Fayetteville

Cover artwork for Ronald Johnson’s epic poem, ARK

Courtesy, Flood Editions

It’s going to be a great next couple months for poetry lovers in Fayetteville.

There are a host of events scheduled around town in April for National Poetry Month (We’ll have more info on that soon), and there’s a huge poetry event scheduled for this weekend as well.

Next Poetry Festival, organized by the folks behind the local Burning Chair Reading series, is set for March 21-22 at various locations around Fayetteville.

The event will include readings by 15 poets from around the country, as well as a marathon reading of the Ronald Johnson’s lyric epic, ARK (read more about ARK in the New Yorker.)

A full schedule of events, as well as artist bios supplied by the folks at Burning Chair Readings are below.

For a bit more information, visit the Facebook page for the event.

Schedule of events

Date: Friday, March 21
Time: 7-10 p.m.
Place: Nightbird Books (205 W. Dickson St.)
What: Readings by Michael Martin Shea, Mark Spitzer, Phil Estes, Stacy Kidd, Lea Graham, Deborah Woodard, Mark Lamoureux, Julia Cohen, Shannon Tharp

Date: Saturday, March 22
Time: 2-4 p.m.
Place: Backspace (546 W. Center St., Unit H)
What: Readings by C.S. Carrier, Whit Griffin, Tim Earley, Tim Van Dyke, Sara Nicholson, Jane Gregory

Date:Saturday, March 22
Time: 6 p.m. – 12 a.m.
Place: Fayetteville Underground (101 W. Mountain St.)
What: A marathon reading of Ronald Johnson’s long out-of-print lyric epic ARK, recently reprinted by Flood Editions.

Author Bios

Bios provided by Burning Chair Readings

C.S.Carrier is the author of Mantle (H_NGM_N, 2013) and After Dayton (Four Way Books, 2008). A chapbook is forthcoming in 2014 from horse less press. He lives in Clarksville, AR and is pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Louisiana Lafayette.

Julia Cohen is made from bobby pins and ginger tea. She lives in Chicago as an Assistant Professor at Wright College. Her newest book is Collateral Light, from Brooklyn Arts Press.

Tim Earley has written three collections of poems: Boondoggle, The Spooking of Mavens, and, most recently, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (horseless press, 2014). Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chicago Review, Jubilat, Caketrain, Atlas Review, The Hick Poetics Anthology, and Dreginald. Catfish Poems, a limited edition chapbook, was recently published by Delete Press. A recipient of two writing fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center In Provincetown, he is currently an English Instructor for Ole Miss Online.

Phil Estes has work forthcoming in Georgetown Review, Sprung Formal, and Westwind Review. His work has appeared in Diagram, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Lifted Brow,
Willow Springs and others. He runs Bumpkinitis, a reading series in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Lea Graham’s first book, Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You was released August 2011 from No Tell Books. She is also the author of the chapbook Calendar Girls (above ground press, 2006). Her poems, collaborations, reviews and articles have been published in journals and anthologies such as American Letters & Commentary, The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel: Second Floor, Notre Dame Review and The Capilano Review. Her translations are forthcoming in The Alteration of Silence: Recent Chilean Poetry through the University of New Orleans Press. She is Assistant Professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and a native of Northwest Arkansas.

Jane Gregory is the author or My Enemies (Song Cave, 2012). She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently working towards a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Whit Griffin’s first two collections were published by Skysill Press. His most recent book, A Far-Shining Crystal, was published by Cultural Society. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Golden Handcuffs Review, Hambone, Bestoned, TYPO, and Lungfull. After having attended schools in the northeast, he’s currently living in his hometown, Memphis.

Stacy Kidd is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Central Arkansas. Her book of poems Red House Over Yonder is forthcoming from The National Poetry Review Press this year.

Mark Lamoureux lives in New Haven, CT. He is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: Spectre (Black Radish Books 2010), Astrometry Orgonon (BlazeVOX Books 2008), and 29 Cheeseburgers / 39 Years (Pressed Wafer, 2013). His work has been published in print and online in Cannibal, Denver Quarterly, Jacket, Fourteen Hills and many others.

Sara Nicholson is the author of The Living Method (The Song Cave, 2014) and a chapbook, Good for Burning (Free Poetry, 2014). She lives in Arkansas.

Michael Martin Shea lives in Oxford, Mississippi. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Colorado Review, Indiana Review, jubilat, Pleiades, and Best New Poets 2012. He coordinates the Trobar Ric Reading Series and edits Yalobusha Review.

Mark Spitzer is a professor of creative writing in the Department of Writing at the University of Central Arkansas. His poetry collections include Age of the Demon Tools (Ahadada Books) and The Pigs Drink from Infinity (Spuyten Duyvil). Memoirs include After the Orange Glow (Monkey Puzzle Press) and Writer in Residence (UNO Press). He has translated books by Jean Genet (The Genet Translations, Polemic Press), Louis-Ferdinand Céline (The Church, Green Integer), Arthur Rimbaud (From Absinthe to Abyssinia, Creative Arts), Georges Bataille (The Collected Poems of Georges Bataille, Dufour Editions; Divine Filth, Creation Books) and Blaise Cendrars (Films without Images, Green Integer). Spitzer’s novels include Chum (Zoland Books), CHODE! (Six Gallery Press), and Bottom Feeder (Creative Arts). He has also published the following nonfiction collections: Season of the Gar (U of AR Press), Riding the Unitand Proze Attack (both by Six Gallery Press). Spitzer has been featured on Animal Planet’s River Monsters as an expert on the alligator gar is the Editor in Chief of UCA’s cutting-edge literary annual, the Toad Suck Review.

Shannon Tharp is the author of The Cost of Walking (Skysill Press, 2011) and Vertigo in Spring (The Cultural Society, 2013). Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Everyday Genius, Hidden City Quarterly, Typo, Verse, and The Volta. She lives in Laramie, where she is a librarian at the University of Wyoming.

Tim Van Dyke has published Topographies Drawn with a Divine Chain of Birds (Lavender Ink 2011), Fugue Engine (Cannibal 2011), and Light on the Lion’s Face: A Reading of Baudrillard’s Seduction (Argotist 2012). His work has appeared in Drunken Boat, Fascicle, Red-headed Stepchild, Typo, and elsewhere.

Deborah Woodard’s most recent collection is Borrowed Tales (Stockport Flats, 2012). She has translated the poetry of Amelia Rosselli from Italian: The Dragonfly, A Selection of Poems: 1953-1981 (Chelsea Editions, 2009). Her translation of Rosselli’s Hospital Series is forthcoming from New Directions. She holds a doctorate in English from the University of Washington and teaches hybrid reading and creative writing classes at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle.