NMSU at AWP 11

NMSU will be well-represented at AWP this year, with both Puerto Del Sol and the NMSU MFA program exhibiting at the bookfair. The tables are right next to each other, so stop by and say hello, as well as pick up a copy of the latest Puerto and some information on the MFA at NMSU. Richard Greenfield's press, Apostrophe Books, will be sharing a table with Action Books. You can find Noemi Press at the Puerto table.

Be sure to attend Possess Nothing, a reading hosted by Apostrophe Books, Action Books, Black Ocean, Slope Editions, and Tarpaulin Sky Press on Saturday 2/5, 6:30 pm at the Wonderland Ballroom. 

Carmen Gimenez Smith will be participating in the following panels:

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 4TH AT 4:30PM

Omni Shoreham Empire Ballroom, West Lobby 
Poet/Editors on Inclusivity and Race. (Rich Villar, Dan Chiasson, Don
Share, Carmen Giménez Smith, Barbara Jane Reyes)
Poet/editors discuss inclusiveness (and lack thereof) of minority
voices in literary publications. Representing both mainstream and more
community-based projects, the panelists consider the challenges of
inclusiveness, and how successful (and unsuccessful) they have been.
They consider how, in an atmosphere of perceived mistrust,
constructive dialogue can be forged towards the goal of better
presenting the broad spectrum of American poetry.

Saturday, 4:30-5:45 p.m.

Wilson A, B, & C Room
Marriott Wardman Park, Mezzanine Level

S218. LaChiPo and the New Latino Poetics/Politics. (John-Michael Rivera, Rodrigo Toscano, Valerie Martinez, Roberto Tejada, Danielle Cadena Deulen, Carmen Giménez Smith) LaChiPo, an online forum for the Latino Diaspora, is the Latino’s 21st-century answer to “new” movements like flarf and conceptual poetics. Devoted to developing Latino letters, LaChiPo invites AWP attendees to resituate how they read, to relearn how identity is spoken, expanding their articulation of history, art and modernity. LaChiPo presents writers discussing Latino conceptions of internet community, identity and the avant-garde, reading individual and their collective poetry works.

Carmen will also be participating in the Floricanto reading, which is on Friday 2/4 at 6 pmat the True Reformer Building on U Street.

MFA students will also be busy; Heather Frankland will be volunteering for the conference. Carrie Murphy and Megan Wong will be at the NMSU MFA table, Mike Meginnis will be found at the Puerto Del Sol table and Robert Alan Wendeborn will be helping out at the Apostrophe table.

3rd Year Student Profile: Heather Dawn Frankland

Heather Dawn Frankland originally hails from Hoosier-land Indiana, which, contrary to public opinion, is not solely full of corn. She originally arrived to Las Cruces for a Masters of Public Health, but was so enchanted by a poetry elective class that she decided to pursue her MFA after receiving her MPH. Currently, she is completing her MFA in Poetry at New Mexico State University. She teaches courses in composition and creative writing in which she regularly inserts principles of community advocacy. Additionally, she has been active in community volunteering, program building, and grant writing.

Much of Heather’s work is inspired by her international experiences living abroad, namely her time serving as a Peace Corps Community Health Volunteer in Peru. Although she never really mastered how to drive a donkey as evidenced by the photo, she did learn a mountain of life experiences that expanded her paradigm. Her thesis-in-progress explores the concept of “othering” and being “othered.” She enjoys magical realism and modern interpretations of the fairy tale. 

After receiving her MFA, Heather plans to build programs that use creative approaches, such as writing, in order to address social and public health problems like violence. Although she hasn’t actively pursued publishing, she is focusing on doing so in the future  and becoming more widely published.

RIP John Ross

John Ross always stopped by NMSU as he crisscrossed the Americas. Last year he spoke to Rus Bradburd's workshop about his writing career...

Here's the obit from SF Gate:

"Journalist, investigative poet and social activist John Ross died peacefully today at Lake Patzcuaro in Mexico where he had lived on and off for the past 50 years. He was 72. The cause was liver cancer.

A young generation Beat poet and the national award-winning author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, and nine chapbooks of poetry, Ross received the American Book Award (1995) for Rebellion from the Roots: Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas, and the coveted Upton Sinclair Award (2005) for Murdered By Capitalism: 150 Years of Life and Death on the American Left. The first journalist to bring news of the indigenous Mexican Zapatista revolution to English-speaking readers, Ross was widely regarded as a "voice for those without a voice," who stood with the poor and oppressed in his brilliantly stylized writing, suffering beatings and arrests during many nonviolent protests."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inthemission/detail?entry_id=81180#ixzz1BPYNIfZa

Owl Eye Review: New Literary Journal from NMSU Alumni

NMSU alumni Austin Tremblay, MFA Poetry '09 and current PhD student at the University of Houston, has begun a new literary journal that publishes poetry and essays. Owl Eye Review's first issue is forthcoming. Submit here!

You can also follow Owl Eye Review on Twitter or Facebook.

Reading this Friday, 1/14, with Patty Seyburn and Tim Staley

The next reading in the La Sociedad Para Las Artes Nelson/Boswell Reading Series will feature poet Patty Seyburn, reading with NMSU MFA alumni and poet Tim Staley. Patty Seyburn is the author of Hilarity (Western Michigan University, 2009).
Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002) and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998). She also edits the journal POOL.

The reading will take place on Friday, January 14th, at 7:30 pm in the new auditorium in the Health and Social Services building (located in the new addition to the CHHS building), with a reception to follow. The CHHS building is located at 1335 International Mall.  Subsequent readings for the semester will take place in Hardman 106. 


In addition to her reading, Patty Seyburn will be giving a craft talk about humor in poetry on Saturday, January 15th at 11 am in the Emerson Room in Clara Belle Williams Hall. The craft talk is described as follows: 


"What We Talk About When We Talk About Humor in Poetry": the role of
wit, laughter, pathos, jokes, irony, and comic relief. How, why and when to be funny in a poem. When it works, when it backfires. When humor is a strength, when it is a crutch. The issue of timing; the relationship  between humor and form. How "funny" functions in lyric
versus narrative. The connection between humor and ... human connection within a poem. Humor and the voice/consciousness of a poem.

 If you live in or around Southern NM, we hope to see you at both the reading and the craft talk.

NMSU MFA Graduate's Literary Journal Celebrates First Print Issue

MFA Poetry '10 graduate Krystal Languell edits the journal Bone Bouquet, which is celebrating the release of its first print issue.  The NMSU English Dept helped fund the journal with a 2009-10 creative activities grant, and MFA student Elizabeth Brasher and fellow MFA Poetry '10 graduate Allison Layfield have also become involved with the journal. See below for information about the journal, and its inaugural launch reading in Brooklyn this month.

BONE BOUQUET FIRST PRINT ISSUE NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER 

Bone Bouquet is delighted to announce the availability of our first print issue--#2.1--in January 2011. As was our plan from the beginning, we're making the transition from web-only to a hybrid print and online publication.
The new issue is now available for pre-order (http://bonebouquet.org/2010/12/13/252/).

 This issue includes new work from: 

Arielle Greenberg, Jennifer Firestone
Tamiko Beyer, Dana Teen Lomax
Leigh Stein, Emily Skillings
Carolyn Guinzio, Dawn Pendergast
Jennifer H. Fortin, Kara Dorris
Becca Klaver, and Claire Hero.

The first two will remain viewable online, and select content from print issues will be available at our website as well. Issue 2.1 will begin shipping on 1/10/2011! 

BONE BOUQUET ISSUE 2.1 LAUNCH READING JANUARY 15, 2011
We'll be celebrating with a launch reading at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn on January 15, 2011 beginning at 6:00pm. We hope you'll join us if you can!
Readers include contributors Allison Layfield, Tamiko Beyer, Jennifer Firestone, Leigh Stein, Jennifer H. Fortin, and Kate Schapira!
Copies of the print issue will be available at the event, and wine will also be available. After party to take place across the street at Soda Bar.
Unnameable Books
600 Vanderbilt
Brooklyn, NY 11238
walkable from 2, 3 at Brooklyn Museum or 4, 5 at Franklin Ave or C train at Clinton-Washington.

MFA student's film featured on KRWG

Check out this short news segment about the production of the short film "Hatching Max," written by current MFA fiction student Anna Pattison and directed by Tony award-winning playwright Mark Medoff.

The script of "Hatching Max" was generated in Mark Medoff's Screenwriting class this past semester, and members of the class voted on which script should be made into a short film. The movie was filmed in Las Cruces in December and featured Tania Raymonde from ABC's Lost and J.D. Hinton in the two main roles. Other MFA students in the screenwriting class acted as extras, grips, and other assistants for the film, along with students in the Creative Media Institute program at NMSU.