Poetry
Reading:
"The Hidden Treasure Poetry"
Sunday, September 16, 4 to 6 PM
SPECIAL
ANNOUNCEMENT
Dear
Friend,
The Courtyard
Art Gallery in co-operation with the William Meredith Foundation
and poet Joanie DiMartino cordially invite you to an afternoon
delight: Poetry by fine local poets Gray Jacobik and Ravi
Shankar.
Join the
salon for a glass of wine, fine art, and poetic camaraderie at
The Courtyard Gallery: Mystic's Hidden Treasure. The reading
is free and open to the public, with sales of pastries to benefit
future publications and readings in the Hidden Treasure Poetry
Series.
Click
on the Frame sysmbol for a full screen view ^.
WINE:
Poetic Blend, Meredith Red.
"On March 2nd
Warehouse Winery's No. 9 Red was formally awarded Minnesota's
"Best Red" at the Minnesota Food and Wine Experience.
All profits from the
sale of Meredith Red will help support the charitable and artistic
projects of the William Meredith Foundation and Center for the
Arts."
_________________________________________
September
16th 4:00-6:00
Courtyard
Art Gallery
12 Water St.
Mystic, CT. 06355
(860) 536-5059
www.courtyardgallerymystic.com
RAVI
SHANKAR
RAVI
SHANKAR is the founding editor and Executive
Director of Drunken Boat, one of the world's oldest electronic journals
of the arts. He has published or edited seven books and chapbooks
of poetry, including the 2010 National Poetry Review Prize winner,
Deepening Groove. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he
edited W.W. Norton's Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry
from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond, called "a beautiful
achievement for world literature" by Nobel Laureate Nadine
Gordimer. He has won a Pushcart Prize, been featured in The New
York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education, appeared as a
commentator on the BBC and NPR, received fellowships from the MacDowell
Colony and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and has performed
his work around the world. He is currently Chairman of the Connecticut
Young Writers Trust, on the faculty of the first international MFA
Program at City University of Hong Kong and an Associate Professor
of English at CCSU.
CROSSING
Between forest
and field, a threshold
like stepping from a cathedral into the street-
the quality of air alters, an eclipse lifts,
boundlessness opens, earth itself retextured
into weeds where woods once were.
Even [planes
of motions shift from vertical
navigation of horizontal quiescence:
there's a standing invitation to lie back
as sky's unpredictable theater proceeds.
Suspended
in this ephemeral moment
after leaving a forest, before entering
a field, the nature of reality is revealed.
Gray
Jacobik's collections include Brave Disguises (AWP Poetry
Prize, Pittsburgh UP 2002), The Surface of Last Scattering (X.
J. Kennedy Prize, Texas Review Press, 1999), The Double Task (Juniper
Prize, UMASS Press, 1998), and a memoir-in-verse, Little Boy Blue
(CavanKerryPress, 2011). Gray holds a Ph.D. in British and American
Literature from Brandeis University and is a professor emeritus
having retired from Eastern Connecticut State University. For
almost three decades, Gray's poems have received prizes and been
published widely.
She is
a painter as well as a poet. Her paintings can be viewed at:
http://grayjacobikartist.com/
Gray's
poems, books, information about readings and other aspects of
her career as a poet can be found at her poetry website: http://grayjacobik.com/
The
750 Hands
Mar
de lagrimas (Sea of Tears)
Osvoldo
Yero
Each is cast
in porcelain, fired, glazed a shade
of blue or greenish-blue, some left hands,
but mostly right, and each is the hand
of a Cuban artist. Some left during
the great flight of the mid-Sixties
and the lesser flights of the Seventies
and Eighties. And some, forced to work
in mines and canefields, stayed in their
homeland. The hands hang a dozen deep,
a great wave on a long wall, each turned
slightly, thumb up, palm exposed.
From the side we see fingernails,
knuckles, knotted ridges of arteries,
scars of accidents and toil. Inert and cold,
signaling from stony depths, disembodied
yet over-arching, as if each lived more
in the sky than in the flesh, more
in the sea than on the shore; the hand
of its people, the sky and sea that holds Cuba.
Each man or woman kept a hand in plaster
long enough to form a mold, each mold
received the poured clay, the glaze, the fire,
filling the void of absence with existence--
I lived through
sorrowful times and made art
with this hand. Nothing can stop
a hand from finding whatever it needs.
Nothing can stop the maker.
Michael
Linnard
Little Red Tree Publishing, LLC
635 Ocean Avenue,
New London, CT 06320
Summer
Flicker:MARATHON to screen at
two venues at summer's end. Once again, what has become a contemporary
classic will be available for audiences here in New London and in
Minneapolis this August. The foundation has partnered with the OUT
Twin Cities Film Festival for a special fund-raiser at the Crooked
Pint Ale House this August 14th.And a special repeat performance
will take place August 10th at the Provenence Center here in New
London. Good food, good friends, good
poetry, good wine. Shall we say a good evening all the way around?
Please visit the OUT website for more information on their activities
and the Provenance Center as well. And if you aren't familiar with
the film, here is a five star review we hope will entice you to
join us.
See you at the movies!
Please join us on April 25 at 7:00 p.m., as we celebrate
National Poetry Month with Marathon, a film with local connections
featuring familiar settings and faces. Richard Harteis, the filmmaker
and one of the central characters, will be present to introduce
the film and answer your questions.
Marathon
explores the relationship between Richard Harteis and William
Meredith, a former Poet Laureate and winner of every major American
award for poetry including the 1988 Pulitzer Prize. In the 17th
year of their friendship, William sustained a debilitating stroke.
Richard chose to stand by his partner, fighting for the right
to care for him, despite the inevitable restrictions on his own
life, and against the wishes of William's family. Though the path
they chose is not an easy one, their love and compassion see them
through days of illness, therapy, and healing. The power to overcome
illness with dignity becomes a lesson in physical and spiritual
endurance.
The film
was an official selection in several festivals and the winner
of the several awards at the New York International Film Festival.
Contact:
Betty Anne Reiter
Director
Groton Public Library
52 Newtown Road
Groton, CT 06340
Selected
for more than 20 national and international film festivals,
winning awards in N.Y, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Las Vegas.
April
29, Sunday:
Publication
of the first William Meredith Award for Poetry: I HEAR ALWAYS
THE DOGS ON THE HOSPITAL ROOF, New and Collected Poems by
David Fisher. Launching will take place at the Courtyard
Gallery in Mystic on April 29th.
All
net profits from the sale of Poetic Blend, William Meredith Red
support the charitable and artistic projects of the William Meredith
Foundation and Center for the Arts. On March 2nd Warehouse Winery’s
No. 9 Red was formally awarded Minnesota’s " Best Red
at the Minnesota Food and Wine Experience. This award-winning
wine is being released under the name "Poetic Blend, Meredith
Red." All net profits from the sale of Meredith Red will
help support the charitable and artistic projects of the William
Meredith Foundation and Center for the Arts.
Rich, ripe,
full-bodied red wine; deep, dark berry flavors; bold statement;
oak nuance; vanilla tones; long finish, no filtration.
CABERNET SAUVIGNON
45%
PETITE SIRAH 30%
FRONTENAC 20%
CABERNET FRANC 5%
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday 7 March 2011
CONTACT:
Proprietor (Winery): BILLY SMITH, (612)867-8998, billy@warehousewinery.com
Marketing Specialist (Winery): SAM HANKEY, (952)201-0678, sam@warehousewinery.com
Director (Foundation): RICHARD HARTEIS, marathonfilm@gmail.com
MINNESOTA'S WAREHOUSE WINERY ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH THE WILLIAM
MEREDITH FOUNDATION AND ARTS CENTER ON RELEASE OF "MINNESOTA'S
BEST RED."
Warehouse Winery LLC, is inviting writers, reporters, and press
advocates to celebrate the recent awarding of "Minnesota's
Best Red" and "Minnesota's Best White" by the Minnesota
Food and Wine Experience to our new line of wines; and to commemorate
a new partnership with The William Meredith Foundation on the release
of "Poetic Blend, Meredith Red" - "Minnesota's Best
Red." Press parties are invited, at convenience, to explore
our wine making haven, enjoy free wine tastings and a complementary
tour of our facilities hosted by our award winning winemaker Billy
Smith and his staff (Contact Sam Hankey [above] to arrange a date
and time). Warehouse Winery is located at 6415 Cambridge Street,
Minneapolis, MN 55426.
The Winery is open from 8am-4pm, Monday - Friday. Arrangements outside
of working hours are acceptable. We invite you also to visit our
website: www.warehousewinery.com.
Warehouse Winery, LLC began as a hobby for Wayzata native Billy
Smith, but evolved rapidly when local consumers noticed his natural
ability for winemaking. Billy has put countless hours into first
refining winemaking methods, hand picking his production and promotion
crew, creating promotional materials, investing in new equipment
and eventually turning what began as a passion project into a full
blown commercial winery. Although the popularity of Warehouse Wines
has exploded in the last few years, the winery itself still retains
its quaint, cozy style and remains a beautiful, comfortable, intimate
and exciting venue.
On March 2nd Warehouse Winery's No. 9 Red was formally awarded "Minnesota's
Best Red" at the Minnesota Food and Wine Experience. In true
charitable spirit Smith teams up with Richard Harteis (contact above),
director of the William Meredith Foundation and Arts Center, in
its release under the name "Poetic Blend, Meredith Red".
Billy Smith and Richard Harteis are available for phone or in person
interviews and our facilities are available for personal tours.
Please contact sam@warehousewinery.com or call Sam at (952) 201-0678
to set up a time that is convenient.
MARATHON
WINS IN LAS VEGAS
As for news,
I am happy to say announce that our film MARATHON has been awarded
a special jury prize for "Excellence in Filmaking - Narrative
Feature" at the Anthem Film Festival final banquet July 16th
at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas. The Anthem Festival is part of
Freedom Fest, a gathering of 3,000 Libertarians from all walks
of life to discuss business, politics and the arts. Films demonstrating
self reliance and personal courage were selected, certainly qualities
William demonstrated his entire lifetime, but especially with
the challenges of ageing. We were able to present his poetry at
the convention center book store, and describe the foundations
work at various functions and to friends such as my old college
roomate, Brian Greenspun who publishes the Las Vegas Sun. Speakers
included Steve Forbes, Juan Williams, Senator Paul, and Doug Casey
among others. Dr. Joseph Stauffer kindly sponsored travel to conference
and as well as Mr. and Mrs. John Brennan.
Another festival,
The Gig Harbor Film Festival has invited us to Washington state
this October 14-16th, and my hometown, York Pa. has invited us
to the Prometheus Film Festival on August 19th, the day afer my
65th (gulp!) birthday. I will be in York with friends and family
to celebrate the film and commiserate on the anniversary. And
just before the York festival, we have been accepted as an official
selection in the Columbia Gorge Film Festival in Vancouver, Washington.
Our great hope is to schedule more theatrical releases of MARATHON
in venues such at the University of Ohio where it showed recently
as well as the Downtown Bocca Festival this past spring.
Upcoming festivals include:
The Columbia
Gorge Film Festival, takes place in Vancover, WA August 10-14,
2011.
The Prometheus Festival, York, PA August 19-21, 2011.
The Gig Harbor Festival,Washington State, October 13-16, 2011.
Marathon
the movie
2011
Anthem Film Festival
Special Jury Prize Trophy
for a Narrative Feature
Letter
from the President
Dear Friends,
Hello again,
here at Riverrun where summer is a rollin' in. The stand of Japanese
maples we planted last year has done well despite the deer's appetite
for the small delicious red leaves. The lawn mower has been fixed
and "the field tilting always toward day" has been given
a haircut. William's longtime friend, John Hracyk stopped by this
week to present us with the gift of a Chinese sculpture from his
collection, a green ceramic dog to guard against evil spirts we
have named Lee Chen. I've changed the O-rings in the leaky faucet
and replaced the window the storms blew in this winter. Two long-haired
princes come from New York soon to put a stainless steel liner
in the chimney. Always something with a house.... But we are a
state landmark now, and we need to attend to the tired beauty
of the place as best as possible. My great hope is that one day
the foundation will take ownership of the house and continue its
spirit in perpetuity.
John
Hracyk
Planting
Trees
New
Trees
Richard
Harteis with mascot
Richard
Harteis
Some
years ago, the Mystic Seaport produced a really beautiful,
leather-bound collection of William's WWII poems entitled,
THE WRECK OF THE THRESHER. It includes wonderful archival
photos from the Navy and contains a journal section of lined,
numbered, pages to record a readers thoughts. The seaport
has graciously contributed a large number of copies of this
book to the foundation. It will be a great way to keep William's
work available, his voice alive among us. We are working with
board member, Johnes Ruta to establish a Foundation Book Store
where this and other books will be available. (Johnes has
also scheduled an art exhibition at the New Haven Free Public
Library, where he is curator, for Deborah Curtis. The Foundation-sponsored
exhibition will open October 14 and run through November.
Details to follow.) We plan to give The Wreck of the Thresher
to participants in the forthcoming William Meredith Poetry
Festival as well as to friends of the foundation. We await
word from Connecticut College who we have invited to sponsor
the festival during National Poetry Month, April 2012. The
English Department has reviewed the project and finds it an
"excellent idea," so we are keeping our fingers
crossed.
NEW
PROJECTS
Finally, we are in the process of publishing David Fisher's
Collected Poems this fall with Little Red Tree Publishing
House of New London. David's work will be the first in the
William Meredith Poetry Award as part of the Poetry Festival.
A second volume will follow, that of Florida Poet Laureate,
Edmond Skellings. Ed was a longtime friend of William's.
Diane Newman has worked with Ed over the years as his colleague
and editor. She has worked for years as program administrator
and most recently as Archive Manager at Evans College. We
plan to welcome Diane as a Meredith fellow for a residency
next summer to begin the digitization of William's archive
and organization of his papers at the library at Riverrun.
I leave
you with three poems, one a sort of "objet trouve"
from a walk to the river, and two from the poets we have
selected to inaugurate The William Meredith Poetry Award
coming soon from Little Red Tree. Recently too, I came across
a YouTube posting of William reading his poem "Crossing
Over." The epigraph to the poem is from Uncle Tom's
Cabin. How this poem was published with the photo from his
youth I have no idea. But the more often William speaks
to us from this internet aethers, all the better, say I.
One evening I was thinking of him and for some reason pulled
my cell phone out of my pocket and there was a picture of
William and Daisy. Disconcerting and lovely.... Enjoy the
pleasures of summer.
To be
sure it hadn't been stolen
from its winter bed beside the barn
I walked to the point as a last resort
in search of the missing kayak.
Early summer had thrown a green
caftan over her as she slept, another
black mark for the navy boy who took her
dancing and didn't bring her home.
The water was dark as onyx,
a lone swan bobbed for grass
just off shore, the horizon divided
into blue and green - irresistible.
Not as deft as in earlier days,
I slipped into her like an old lover
and we set out together in silence
the water singing to us as we cut
the swells of a passing jetski -
a girl and boy, two boys?
holding tight as they zipped up river.
Two dragonflies in media res.
Peace on careless sailors, speed daemons.
To everything there is a season. A time to
drift, to be alone, neither sad nor happy
like the swan gliding away as I return.
I lift her ashore, and an impatient
stow away jumps from the kayak
and scurries into the bushes. A sweet,
dark-eyed mouse, a little grace note
from the universe to end the simple
song of a summer afternoon.
-Richard Harteis
The
Lost Airman
I can't
fly any more because of heart troubles.
One
valve is fluttering in the bloodwind. The whole
Hangar
suffers from a long neglect. And I say
Nothing
is like the sweet quiet of a midwest dawn.
You
wet your feet and the bottoms of your blue
Overalls
with dewshine from the morning, and
Have
time for a slow coffee and a slow read
Of
the old happenings of the world's yesterday.
And
after the long yawn of the huge barn doors, arms
Stretch
out in the sun's light like wings. One can
Drum
a hand's fingers on the lacquer fabric, typing
Nothing
anyone else will read or understand.
And
after the sputter and the runup, after the roll,
The
lift, the throttle back to cruise, there is a little
Minute
to look down at fog wisp and mist puff.
It
is a real wonder to look level at heaven.
And
I don't know why I woke thinking of the white
Sparrow
skeleton I saw once stuck in the black roof tar,
But
I can't fly any more because of my heart's troubles.
And
it is hard to remember, the odor of oil on the clover.
-Edmund
Skellings
The
Bear
Thrown
from the boxcar of the train, the bear
rolls
over and over. He sits up
rubbing
his nose. This must be
some
mistake,
there
is no audience here.
He
shambles off through the woods.
The
forest is veined with trails,
he
does not know which to follow.
The
wind is rising, maple leaves turn up
their
silver undersides in agony, there is a
smell
in the air, and the lightening strikes.
He
climbs a tree to escape. The rain
pours
down, the bear is blue as a gall.
There
is not much to eat
in
the forest, only berries,
and
some small delicious animals
that
live in a mound and bite your nose.
The
bear moves sideways through a broom-straw field.
He
sees the hunters from the corner of his eye
and
is sure they have come to take him back.
To
welcome them , (though there is no calliope)
he
does his somersaults, and juggles
a
fallen log, and something
tears
through his shoulder,
he
shambles away in the forest and cries.
Do
they not know who he is?
After
a while, he learns to fish, to find
the
deep pool and wait for the silver trout.
He
learns to keep his paw up for spiderwebs.
There
is only one large animal, with trees
on
its head, that he can not scare.
At
last he is content to be
alone
in the forest,
though
sometimes he finds a clearing
and
solemnly does tricks,
though
no one sees.
-David
Fisher
Listening
to Light and Color:
Water Works by Deborah Curtis and Sooky Maniquant
Artists'
Reception : Saturday, October 29, 2011, 2:00 to 4:00 PM
The
New Haven Free Public Library Gallery
133 Elm Street (Lower Level) New Haven, CT 06510
Guest
Curator: Poet Richard Harteis
Sponsored by the William Meredith Foundation
Deborah Curtis: "Pathway to the Water - Harkness"
14” x 18” Pastel on Pastel board
The William Meredith
Foundation and the Azoth Gallery present a two-person exhibit
of artworks by Connecticut artist Deborah Curtis and French artist
Sooky Maniquant at the New Haven Public Library Gallery.
****************************************************************
Deborah
Curtis
Deborah
Curtis has combined her interests in science, technology and the
visual arts. She graduated from Northeastern University with a
Bachelor of Science in Fine Arts through a joint program at The
Art Institute of Boston. She was employed at Retina Associates
in Boston for more than eight years as an ophthalmic photographer
and associate media manager. "Being employed in medical and
defense media/photography has helped me create my fine art and
photographs. My Professional Medical Photography skills delegate
how I produce “art” to market."
"My
palette can be organic, using limited two/three primary/complimentary
color choices," writes Deborah. "I also explore the
primary hues and only blend its compliment for shadows and rendering
edges giving the art piece a dreamy like effect not normally found
in reality. In either depiction, I like to simplify my art to
its baseline and work outward.
Deborah Curtis: "Around the Misty Bend - Harkness" 32"
x 42" oil on linen canvas
"I love
using technology to capture what I find unusual and beautiful,
which expedites the exploratory process for my creative statements.
I enjoy nature as an infinite timeless array of light reflected
upon mass, air and liquid igniting emotion through ones mind,
body and spirit. Art to me is the sum expression of passion combining
all these things in harmony, a marriage between the study of life
and the media of technology. Most of her current works are in
series.
Since the
1980s, Deborah has exhibited her art work in Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut. She has painted en plein air, and has
often attracted media attention while rendering exteriors of Connecticut
resorts, inns and sunsets along the Connecticut and Rhode Island
shorelines. Deborah has taught a myriad of workshops: abstract,
figures, animal portraits in pastels and mixed media collage in
New London at Granite Street Gallery, Studio 33, and art classes
in Norwich at Art Works, which featured a retrospective of her
works in 2010. In 2009, she had a solo show of 18 portraits of
women. She also teaches in private homes/studios and is commissioned
for photography and art work.
Deborah Curtis: “Contiguous Wave” – Harkness 11”
x 14” Oil on linen canvas
Commentary
by Richard Harteis:
In a remarkable
series of dramatic monologs entitled HAZARD THE PAINTER, the poet
William Meredith traces the life of his "imaginary playmate,"
an artist saddled with all the accouterments of middle class life
in America: house, car, wife, in-laws, children, and cat. In one
poem, Hazard notes,
"The cat is taking notes against
his
own household. He watches.
Hazard
would like once to see
things
with the cat’s eyes, flat.
It seems
to me in Deborah Curtis’ paintings that she has mastered
the vision of Hazard’s cat. Like the canvases of Milton Avery,
they are stripped of all unnecessary detail, landscapes reduced
their purest essence, Platonic images if you wish, of ocean-ness,
of what it really means to walk the beach alone on a summer’s
day. While the work is clearly representational, it focuses on
color relations and is not overly concerned with creating the
illusion of depth as is most conventional painting. Like Avery
or Matisse, such stripping away takes courage for one living in
what is perhaps the country’s foremost bastion of landscape
painters. The Lyme tradition runs deep as a deer tick after gardening
in southeastern Connecticut. If you want photo realism or perfect
impressionist landscapes, this is the place to shop. Some may
find her work radical for being too abstract; some lovers of Abstract
Expressionism may find it too representational. What is clear
is that Curtis has developed her own unique voice which is always
the mark of a serious poet or artist. In another HAZARD poem,
the painter spends an afternoon skydiving and reflects:
The colors
of autumn
are becoming audible through the haze.
It does not matter that the great masters
could
see this without flight, while
dull
Hazard must be taken up and dropped.
He
see it.
Curtis sees
it too, and "hears" color like a master which is why
her work sings to us so beautifully.
For a painter,
I would image water would be one of the most difficult subjects
to capture, even more than light, or perhaps because of it. Light
captured in a drop of water, or an ice crystal, or a breaking
wave is as evanescent as a summer’s breeze. And natural light
is central to her painting, which is why Ms. Curtis works so often
en plein air. This harmony of light and color, particularly as
it applies to water and seascape marks her as one of the regions
finest new talents whose work we celebrate. If only Hazard and
William were here today to enjoy it with us.
Sooky
Maniquant
Sooky Maniquant
was born in Vietnam in 1934 and brought up in the South Pacific.
She studied in Paris, and traveled through the world, using every
occasion to deepen her knowledge of Océanian, European,
African, Asiatic, and most particularly of Japanese civilizations.
Very early, she makes the choice to live, more often as not, on
the Luberon, her “sacred mountain”, where she feels
nearer to the “vivid forces” of Nature.
Maniquant
first met William Meredith in Paris and Avignon when William was
invited to participate in the Avignon festival. In the piece "After
William Meredith," the Meredith poems are presented in both
his original English and a French translation, juxtaposing the
text with images rendered by Sooky Maniquant. "After William
Meredith" places artwork and poems side by side, allowing
the viewer to experience Meredith's work from two different perspectives:
Meredith's verses and Maniquant's striking visual interpretations:
In 2002: Exposition "round in water, magic Circles"
were variations on 20 poems of William Meredith and Richard Harteis
at the European Center of Poetry of Avignon. In 2006 at the Lyman
Allyn Museum in New London CT : "AFTER WILLIAM MEREDITH"
Spiral Forces were graphic connivances of Sooky Maniquant on poems
by W.Meredith and R.Harteis.
"It is the universe seized in its innermost transformation
which is revealed, but remains surprising, by static as these
chalk cliffs, boiling under the midday sun, terrorized by the
heat and silence, dully crackling on the limit of exploding, a
stilled furnace overflowing onto the whole space of canvas in
a thick wave…. World in distress, but held back by the artist’s
hand on the brim of emptiness…Solidified by the appearance,
sealed into its vibrations, calm and taut as a mummified monster
of a dormant weapon.” ~Paul-Louis Rossi
Sooky Maniquant "Air Heroes" 24" x 36" silkscreen
print on paper
“Sooky
Maniquant’s main preoccupation is to find in the mysterious
existence of each one’s interior life (thing or being), and
to translate this magic by her work, therefore suggesting, particularly
for the works of 1963-1969, incomparable energy of volcanoes,
beyond the “canvas” of the painted artwork. But reality
complicates itself with the parallax “time-space” thus
“perpetual movement” of which the artist will approach
the research of expression more precisely in her collages from
1969. 1974, first tapestry: this material, treated in a very personal
way, with its contours conceived in the mass of the work, enables
her to pursue further in her researches: the continuity of the
material, the heat and sphere of the surface, the vibrations of
colours where the blacks and whites quiver, continue to express
anxiety faced with the mystery of life. ~Henry Galy-Carles
Sooky Maniquant "In the Middle of a Long Friendship"
24" x 36" silkscreen print on paper
"But,"
Richard Harteis writes, "the mystery of life is also the
one of death, of suffering, of horror, and for Sooky is an obsession.
As from 1994 she often combines this with poetry, in opposition
to wars. She puts together stucco, which proclaims her despair,
in long kit form installations. In 2001, she returned to photography
as a means of expression."
Sooky Maniquant
"Tiger at the Water" 24" x 36" silkscreen
print on paper
****************************************************************
E xhibition: October 14 - November 30, 2011
****************************************************************
ACCEPTED
The Columbia Gorge Film Festival, Vancover, WA
August 10 to 14, 2011.
ACCEPTED
The Prometheus Festival, York, PA
August 19 to 21, 2011.
ACCEPTED
The Clearwater Film and Music Festival, Florida,
September 22 to 25, 2011.
ACCEPTED
The Gig Harbor Festival, Washington State,
October 13 to 16, 2011.
ACCEPTED
Southern Appalachian International Film Festival
October 26 to November 4, 2011.
DICK
ALLEN – CT POET LAUREATE
I've
always liked a very simple definition of poetry as "language
measured and supercharged," for it seems to combine poetry's
two basic elements: some kind of rhythm and poetry's great intensity.
For me, it's the sound of poetry that most often initiates a poem...
I love how lines and phrases can be held in the memory... I like
how poetry can "leap" so suddenly from here to there...
I love the simile, the analogy, the allusions, the secret codes,
and how narrative and meditative poetry can move so rapidly and
beautifully from aspect to aspect, time to time, person to person.
I love poetry's passion. And I love the craft of poetry....
Dick
Allen, one of America's leading poets, is preeminent among poets
who encourage new sensibilities in poetry and who have brought
to contemporary poetry
a large array of subjects other than the "self" and
styles other than confessional free verse.
A masterful poet of wide reputation, Allen has published in the
nation's premier journals includingPoetry, the New Yorker, Atlantic
Monthly, Hudson Review, New Republic, and New Criterion, as well
as in scores of national anthologies. He has published seven poetry
collections and won numerous awards including a Pushcart Prize,
the Robert Frost prize, fellowships from the National Endowment
for the Arts and Ingram Merrill Poetry Foundation, and six inclusions
in The Best American Poetry annual volumes. Allen's most recent
collection, Present Vanishing: Poems (Sarabande Books), received
the 2009 Connecticut Book Award for Poetry.
An acclaimed public speaker and poetry reader, Allen has led poetry
workshops
and seminars and served as a judge for various competitions and
selection committees in Connecticut (including Poetry Out Loud
State Finals in 2007 and a POL workshop for teachers in 2009)
and at the national level.
His poems have been featured on Poetry Daily and Garrison Keillor's
Writer's Almanac and in Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry,
as well as recently on the national websites of Tricycle, where
he was a guest poet writing on Zen Buddhism and poetry, and on
the Smartish Pace poetry website.
Prior to his early retirement, Allen was Charles A. Dana Professor
of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University
of Bridgeport (UB) where he taught
from 1968 to 2001. During his distinguished teaching career, he
was highly
regarded and well-loved by students of all ages - particularly
for his generosity of spirit and ability to mentor and nurture
both beginning and accomplished poets. While at UB, he directed
the University's Visiting Writers Series (open to the general
public) which brought fifty of the nation's leading poets to Connecticut,
and created and taught a wide range of courses, including international
poetry and fiction, to a diverse student body.
THE SELFISHNESS OF THE POETRY READER
Sometimes I think I'm the only man in America
who reads poems
and who walks at night in the suburbs,
calling the moon names.
And I'm certain I'm the single man who owns
a house with bookshelves,
who drives to work without a CD player,
taking the long way, by the ocean breakers.
No one else, in all America,
quotes William Meredith verbatim,
cites Lowell over ham and eggs, and Levertov;
keeps Antiworlds and Ariel beside his bed.
Sometimes I think no other man alive
is changed by poetry, has fought
as utterly as I have over "Sunday Morning"
and vowed to love those difficult as Pound.
No one else has seen a luna moth
flutter over Iowa, or watched
a woman's hand lift rainbow trout from water,
and snow fall onto Minnesota farms.
This country wide, I'm the only man
who spends his money recklessly on thin
volumes unreviewed, enjoys
the long appraising look of check-out girls.
How could another in America know why
the laundry from a window laughs,
and how plums taste, and what an auto wreck
feels like--and craft?
I think that I'm the only man who speaks
of fur and limestone in one clotted breath;
for whom Anne Sexton plunged in Grimm; who can't
stop quoting haikus at some weekend guest.
The only man, in all America, who feeds
on something darker than his politics,
who writes in margins and who earmarks pages--
in all America, I am the only man.
Since
2007, Richard Harteis has worked as the president of the William
Meredith Foundation, www.WilliamMeredithFoundation.org)
a 501.c3 organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of the
late US Poet Laureate, who was his partner of 36 years.
Mr.Harteis served for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia,
worked as a physician assistant in North Africa and Asia and spent
a Fulbright year as writer-in-residence at the American University
in Bulgaria. For his work in the culture, he was accorded Bulgarian
citizenship by decree of the President and Parliament in 1996.
Mr.Harteis has taught literature and creative writing at a number
of institutions over the years including The Catholic University
of America, Creighton University, Mt. Vernon College, and Connecticut
College. For two years he directed the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project
and created the NPR radio program THE SOUND OF WRITING serving as
writer/director and host. He has received honors and awards for
his work including fellowships from the National Endowment for the
Arts, the D.C. Commission on the Arts, and the Ford Foundation.
He is the author of ten books of poetry and prose most recently
the novel, SAPPHIRE DAWN,
a new and selected poems, PROVENCE, and a memoir first published
by W.W. Norton in 1989 entitled MARATHON to critical acclaim (and
re-issued through: www.Vivisphere.com).
His series of elegiac lyrics, THE REVENANT was published by Little
Red Tree Publishing (www.littleredtree.com)
in the summer of 2010. In 2008 he produced a 35 mm, 90-minute adaptation
of MARATHON (www.marathonthemovie.com),
which won Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography in the 2009 New
York International Film Festival as well as the Bronze Palm at the
2010 Mexico International Film Festival.
He is currently working with colleagues on a new film project, COMES
LOVE which is set in New York and Hollywood between the great wars.
He lives in West Palm Beach, Florida and Uncasville, Connecticut
where his home, "Riverrun," was added to the Connecticut
Registry of Historic Places in 2007 and now serves as the William
Meredith Center for the Arts. (www.WilliamMeredithFoundation.org)
THE REVENANT
Daisy stretches herself out like a mermaid on the kitchen floor.
She throws her head back and wails for no apparent reason.
It could be comic:
Her luxurious cocker ears fall in a chocolate cascade
like the Sun King's wig or a Dutch Burgomaster.
Why so inconsolable, Daisy?
The cookie jar is out of view;
There is no toy you can not reach,
no siren sounds that I can hear.
I have not packed my bags to leave you.
"They look at something we can't look at
yet," you said once of the ghosts of the house,
"averting their sad glance when we're clumsy with
one another."
Are you playing with us now dear ghost, tossing
an unseen ball to Daisy, trying to cheer us up a bit?
Does she see you through her clouded cataracts, the
way you come to me at the edge of sleep?
Do not tease
us please, my dear; Come in full,
if apparition. You've left us lonely beyond measure,
turned Daisy to a banshee, and my poor brain again a tree
of frantic birds.
The
New Haven Free Public Library Gallery 
