Month: December 2010

The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College Public Reading Schedule – Winter 2011

Twice a year, the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College offers public readings by guest lecturers and graduating students. Here’s the schedule for this year (as posted on their web site):

Monday, January 3, 8:00pm – in Gladfelter, Canon Lounge
Antonya Nelson, Dana Levin, Patrick Somerville, Maurice Manning

Tuesday, January 4, 8:15pm – Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel
Rick Barot, Michael Parker, Eleanor Wilner, Megan Staffel

Wednesday, January 5, 8:15pm – Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel
Dean Bakopoulos, Martha Rhodes, Alix Ohlin, Ellen Bryant Voigt

Thursday, January 6, 8:15pm – Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel
Brooks Haxton, Karen Brennan, Alan Shapiro, Stacey D’Erasmo

Friday, January 7, 8:15pm – Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel
Debra Allbery, Liam Callanan, Jennifer Grotz, C.J. Hribal

Saturday, January 8, 6:00pm – “Fastest Readings in the World” with MFA Faculty at  Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, 55 Haywood Street, Asheville.

Sunday, January 9, 8:15pm – in Gladfelter, Canon Lounge
Marianne Boruch, David Haynes, C. Dale Young, Kevin McIlvoy

Monday, January 10, 8:15pm – Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel
Graduating fiction student readings: Zoe Lasden-Lyman, Scott Nadelson, Brian Tai

Tuesday, January 11, 8:15pm – Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel
Graduating poetry student readings: Leslie Contreras Schwartz, RJ Gibson, Jenny Johnson, Glenis Redmond

Wednesday, January 12  –  4:30pm, followed by Graduation Ceremony
Graduating student readings:  Diana Lueptow, Nathan Poole, Andy Young

Public Lecture Schedule for The MFA for Writers at Warren Wilson College – Winter 2011

In the past, I’ve enjoyed lectures from notable poets like Marianne Boruch and Maurice Manning. This year the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College offers public readings by the following guest lecturers:

All lectures will be held in the Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel unless indicated otherwise.

Tuesday, January 4
MARIANNE BORUCH:  The End Inside It
11:15am

Wednesday, January 5
KEVIN McILVOY: Sentencing & Summoning: Reflections on the Sentence and the Poetic Line
9:30am

Wednesday, January 5
ALAN SHAPIRO:  Technique of Empathy: Free Indirect Style in Poetry
10:45am

Friday, January 7
MICHAEL PARKER:  Transvestite Hermaphrobite: All Hail the Semi-Colon
9:30am

Tuesday, January 11
STACEY D’ERASMO:  On the Unsayable
9:30am

Tuesday, January 11
RICK BAROT:  The Sea and the Zebra: Visual Effects in Poems
10:45am

Wednesday, January 12
DEAN BAKOPOULOS: Hot Dog Station!  Show Show Show!: Expressionism, Exclamations, and the Lyricism of Upheaval
10:00am

Wednesday, January 12
MAURICE MANNING: Place and the Composition of Poetic Self
11:15am

#avlsnomg Of all the stores closed on Tunnel Road, yesterday, both IHOP and Cook Out were open for business.

I may have ‘O.D.ed on twitter this weekend’ and need to unplug for awhile.

I am taking a 30-day spiritual retreat and a sabbatical from social media.

#avlsnomg #avlwx Frank’s Pizza was open on Monday. According to Ray’s Weather, it’s supposed to hit 41°F today. Yesterday’s snow will be a memory.

#avlsnomg As @ashevegas stated yesterday, I overdosed on Twitter as the Christmas Day winter storm dumped almost a foot of snow on Asheville.

#avlsnomg Driving to the office Monday morning.

A morning walk the day after Christmas and all is quiet except the chatter of a couple cardinals in a holly tree. #avlsnomg

Day after Christmas. Snowfall measures just under nine inches. Locals used impassable streets as sled runs. #avlsnomg

Excellent day for a game or two of chess. (via enpasant: Die schachpartie: Max Oppenheimer)

Snow covered barn.

Snow covered limbs along the creek side.

This afternoon I took a walk in the snow. It is over 6 inches deep at 6 p.m. and still coming down. #avlxmas #avlnews #avlsnomg

For this day, 5.4 inches is the record snowfall set in 1969 (via @WLOSphotog21). Anyone know if #avl broke the record today? #avlxmas #avlsnomg #avlnews

25 DEC: Metaphors escape me as I walk outside in the snow.

25 DEC 2010: Walking barefoot on a snowy Christmas Day.

25 DEC 2010: Snow covered barn on Christmas Day. True confession, I took this photo at noon, standing barefoot in the snow.

For Christmas Day

by Charles Wesley

 

Hark, how all the welkin rings,
“Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconcil’d!”

Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”

Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb!

Veil’d in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail th’ incarnate Deity!
Pleas’d as man with men to appear,
Jesus, our Immanuel here!

Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace,
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.

Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.

Come, desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Now display thy saving power,
Ruin’d nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.

Let us thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.

(via Poetry Foundation)

25 DEC 2010: A snowy Carolina Christmas Day. There’s about 5 inches at 2 p.m.

25 DEC 2010: It started snowing around 8 a.m. and by noon there is three inches. #avlxmas #avlnews #avlsnomg

FROHE WEIHNACHTEN EUCH ALLEN!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU!

 

(via germanheit)

 

The God We Hardly Knew

by Óscar Romero

 

No one can celebrate
a genuine Christmas
without being truly poor.
The self-sufficient, the proud,
those who, because they have
everything, look down on others,
those who have no need
even of God- for them there
will be no Christmas.
Only the poor, the hungry,
those who need someone
to come on their behalf,
will have that someone.
That someone is God.
Emmanuel. God-with-us.
Without poverty of spirit
there can be no abundance of God.

Mosaic of the Nativity (Serbia, Winter 1993)

by Jane Kenyon

 

On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:

“We’re descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?”

God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.

(via Charlie Lowell)

The Winter Is Cold, Is Cold

by Madeleine L’Engle

 

The winter is cold, is cold.
All’s spent in keeping warm.
Has joy been frozen, too?
I blow upon my hands
Stiff from the biting wind.
My heart beats slow, beats slow.
What has become of joy?

If joy’s gone from my heart
Then it is closed to You
Who made it, gave it life.
If I protect myself
I’m hiding, Lord, from you.
How we defend ourselves
In ancient suits of mail!

Protected from the sword,
Shrinking from the wound,
We look for happiness,
Small, safety-seeking, dulled,
Selfish, exclusive, in-turned.
Elusive, evasive, peace comes
Only when it’s not sought.

Help me forget the cold
That grips the grasping world.
Let me stretch out my hands
To purifying fire,
Clutching fingers uncurled.
Look! Here is the melting joy.
My heart beats once again.

amyvernon: Phases of the eclipse over Ciudad de México. via itsfullofstars: Source: EFE.

(Source: http://cs.i.uol.com.br/album/101221eclipse_f_014.jpg)