This
festschrift was first presented at Centennial Celebration of
William Meredith: His Legacy of Writing at Connecticut College
April 12, 2019 by the William Meredith Foundation and Poets
Choice. Important essays included as well as numerous archival photos
of William Meredith and the 2019 William Meredith Award for Poetry.
Memorial Moment by Janet Gezari, Just a Few Influences on William
Meredith, J. Scott Price, The Language of the Tribe by Michael Collier,
ENABLING LOVE, Tom Kirlin, MEREDITH POEMS, ETCHINGS BY STOIMEN STOILOV,Hundredth
Anniversary by Krassin Himmirski, A Tribute, by Richard Harteis, A
Love Song for William Meredith, Julia Alvarez
Bridge of
Light
Artistic Illumination from the Balkans
June 21 through August 28, 2015, the Slater Memorial Museum
presented Bridge of Light, tracing the important artistic bridge first
begun by William Meredith decades ago when he served as US
Poet Laureate. The bridge became a major part of Meredith's
legacy as a teacher, poet and friend to artists. For more
information please visit the following links: http://www.slatermuseum.org/cf_news/view.cfm?newsid=382
Elisavietta Ritchies work is original, varied and exciting,
and has been
growing steadily in scope and control. The core of her poems is vitality.
Grim, joyous, exuberant or erotic, they have a strong and vivid life.
Josephine Jacobsen
US Poet Laureate, 1971-73
Witty, sharp, sensual, possessed of a scientists eye for
the precise detail,
the memorable image. Elisavietta Ritchie is in love with the natural
world
of maggot, freezing bilge, the owl on unheard wings, berries
fed on ash
and blood, branches with lavender fire. She brings
a tuned ear for the
music of language, a storytellers gift and a generosity of spirit
that delights
as it informs.
Colette Inez
Elisavietta Ritchies poetry combines a Byzantine elegance
with straightforward
plain style honesty. The extraordinary range of her interests: work,
love, sensuality, and mans plight in a forlorn civilizationis
reinforced by
her exquisite regard for language and lively fascination with the
possibilities
of form.
William Packard
Recently
published books presented at the Bulgarian Embassy, Washington,
D.C.
We
are pleased to announce the publication of CONGREGATION as the 2014
William Meredith Award for Poetry given to US Poet Laureate, Natasha
Trethewey. Individual copies can be purchased at this Pay Pal donate
button, for $12.95 (with free shipping.) Book Store DISCOUNTS for
bulk sales available by contacting: MarathonFilm@gmail.com
or telelphone 860-961-5138
FROM THE FOREWORD:
The William Meredith Foundation is honored to present the 2014 award
for poetry to Natasha Trethewey. Beyond the fact that both poets
served at the Library of Congress, the award recognizes a shared
aesthetic and level of achievement.
When Meredith was writing poems, his goal was that they be "useful,"
that they speak to audiences "In the heart's duress, on the
heart's behalf." For Meredith, poetry is essentially an act
of communication in the language of the human tribe, not an exercise
in intellectual posturing or exhibitionism. His work is accessible
and deceptively simple. He speaks to us with a moral authority and
finally, like Trethewey, feels impelled "to offer somebody/uncomprehending,
impudent thanks." Congregation is such a document, a "love
letter to the Gulf Coast, a praise song, a dirge, invocation and
benediction, a requiem for the Gulf Coast."
Here are the people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Katrina,
speaking to her with the folk wisdom, and faith, of the survivor.
"Without faith, we is victims," one church marquee proclaims,
and another, with a different kind of eloquence, "God is not/
the author of fear." A pilgrim, she returns to the Gulf Coast
and her people, but finds home to be "but a cradle of the past."
She cannot enter the church service, "standing at the vestibule
- neither in, nor out," and can only watch, her face against
the glass, attempting to face the things that confront her. By the
end of the cycle, however, she has earned the Whitmanesque final
line of the poems, "native daughter: I am the Gulf Coast.".
GREEN-WINGED
HORSE
new and selected poems by
Lyubomir Levchev
($24.95 (7" X 10") Little Red Tree; 254 pages,
with 41 color and black & white paintings,
illustrations and photos)
Art Work by Stoimen Stoilov
Translations from Bulgarian by Valentin Krustev
Edited by Richard Harteis
"Lyubomir Levchev, the poems you write are
written by the sky
and the street and the old people who died 400 years ago and the
little kids
who will be born 400 years from now and they are poems of profound
joy
and swift sorrow " ~ William Saroyan
Green-Winged Horse features a great number of
new poems, uniquely translated
by Valentin Krustev, one of Williams oldest friends who was
one of the
very first translators assigned to William when he first began
attending Peace the Hope of the Planet, the writers' conferences
sponsored
by the Union of Bulgarian Writers over the decades..
Here once again, history and talent come together in friendly synchronicity.
Peter
Curman, Dora Boneva, Lyubomir Levchev and Jack Hart at the 100th
anniversary of the Union of Bulgarian Writers, Sofia, September
9/21/2013
CROSSING
OVER
by William Meredith
($29.95, (8.5" x 11") Little Red Tree; Hardback, 60 pages)
A wonderful collection
of poems by William Meredith, US Poet Laureate
winner of every major award for US poetry, including the Pulitzer
Prize;
with French translations by Marc Albert, and Serigraphs by Sooky
Maniquant.
I
HEAR ALWAYS THE DOGS ON THE HOSPITAL ROOF
by David Fisher
($24.95, (7" x 10") Little Red Tree; Paperback, 260 pages)
Winner of the first William
Meredith Award for Poetry, 2012. This exciting book
features new and collected poems from David Fisher, plus 35 wonderful
full-color
paintings by Rita Dawley and photographs by Stella Monday, plus
many other illustrations.
The William Meredith Foundation, Inc.
337 Kitemaug Road
Uncasville, Ct. 06382
Email: RiverrunBooks@cs.com
Tel: 860-961-5138