On February 10, Robert Snyderman presented "The Storm
Is Not Outside Us: A Seminar on Spirit and Nomadism in Besmilr
Brigham's Poetry"
Besmilr Moore Brigham was an award-winning poet and short-story writer who lived in Arkansas for decades. She came to prominence during the women’s movement of the 1960s, and her work is noted for its innovative structure, sound, and rhythm. Her writing was experimental, often seeming to migrate across the page in the same way Brigham and her husband liked to migrate in life. She employed erratic, though purposeful, punctuation, which produced a rhythm instead of following the rules of grammar. In the 1950s she studied with poet Robert Duncan and at the New School for Social Research. In 1970, Brigham received a Discovery Award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The accompanying NEA grant led to a collection of her work, Heaved from the Earth, which was published by Knopf in 1971. Brigham’s poems had been published in New Directions, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times. She also published short stories, including, “The Lottery Drawing,” in the anthology Mississippi Writers: Reflections of Childhood and Youth. After a flurry of publishing in the 1960s and 1970s, Brigham dropped from the eyes of the publishing world and lived in relative obscurity. In 1993, Brigham was rediscovered by C. D. Wright for Wright’s Lost Roads Project and was included in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting documentary United States of Poetry, which included Brigham and her son-in-law, poet Keith Wilson. Wright described Brigham and her husband as “the last free people. They hadn’t been broken by the life they had chosen, which was itinerant and subsistent. They treated their life like an adventure and her work like a staple, like beans.” A posthumous compilation of her work, Run through Rock, was selected and edited by Wright, who published it through her imprint, Lost Roads Press. (Source:
For his presentation, Robert Snyderman, a poet completing graduate studies at Brown University, has put together 17 poems published in journals and magazines in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Students from the MFA program at NMSU will read these poems aloud and will participate in an open discussion of the work. Heloise Wilson, daughter of Besmilr Brigham and a resident of Las Cruces, will also participate. If you are interested in reading poems aloud, please contact Megan Wong at mmwhite@nmsu.edu.
On February 15, Dot Devota, Brandon Shimoda, and Zachary Schomburg read in the HSS Annex Auditorium.
On February 24, poet Joni Wallace read in Hardman Hall as part of the La Sociedad para las Artes.
Besmilr Moore Brigham was an award-winning poet and short-story writer who lived in Arkansas for decades. She came to prominence during the women’s movement of the 1960s, and her work is noted for its innovative structure, sound, and rhythm. Her writing was experimental, often seeming to migrate across the page in the same way Brigham and her husband liked to migrate in life. She employed erratic, though purposeful, punctuation, which produced a rhythm instead of following the rules of grammar. In the 1950s she studied with poet Robert Duncan and at the New School for Social Research. In 1970, Brigham received a Discovery Award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The accompanying NEA grant led to a collection of her work, Heaved from the Earth, which was published by Knopf in 1971. Brigham’s poems had been published in New Directions, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times. She also published short stories, including, “The Lottery Drawing,” in the anthology Mississippi Writers: Reflections of Childhood and Youth. After a flurry of publishing in the 1960s and 1970s, Brigham dropped from the eyes of the publishing world and lived in relative obscurity. In 1993, Brigham was rediscovered by C. D. Wright for Wright’s Lost Roads Project and was included in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting documentary United States of Poetry, which included Brigham and her son-in-law, poet Keith Wilson. Wright described Brigham and her husband as “the last free people. They hadn’t been broken by the life they had chosen, which was itinerant and subsistent. They treated their life like an adventure and her work like a staple, like beans.” A posthumous compilation of her work, Run through Rock, was selected and edited by Wright, who published it through her imprint, Lost Roads Press. (Source:
For his presentation, Robert Snyderman, a poet completing graduate studies at Brown University, has put together 17 poems published in journals and magazines in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Students from the MFA program at NMSU will read these poems aloud and will participate in an open discussion of the work. Heloise Wilson, daughter of Besmilr Brigham and a resident of Las Cruces, will also participate. If you are interested in reading poems aloud, please contact Megan Wong at mmwhite@nmsu.edu.
On February 15, Dot Devota, Brandon Shimoda, and Zachary Schomburg read in the HSS Annex Auditorium.
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| DOT DEVOTA is from a family of ranchers and rodeo stars. She is the author of The Eternal Wall (Cannibal Books), MW: A Midwest Field Guide (Editions 19\), and Scenes From My Massacre (Urgent Series). Her poems can also be found in Action Yes, Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, jubilat, Muthafucka, VOLT and in Old Franklin, Missouri. |
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ZACHARY
SCHOMBURG is the
author of Fjords Volume 1 (Black
Ocean, 2012), Scary, No Scary (Black
Ocean 2009), and The Man Suit (Black
Ocean 2007), as well as several small press chapbooks. His The Book of Joshua will be published by McSweeney's in 2013. With
Mathias Svalina, he co-edits Octopus
Magazine and Books.
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BRANDON SHIMODA is the author of O Bon (Litmus Press, 2011), The
Girl Without Arms (Black Ocean, 2011), and The Alps (Flim Forum, 2008)—among other solo and collaborative
works of various sizes and shapes. He was born in California, has lived most
recently in Missouri, Maine and Taiwan, though currently lives in Arizona.
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On February 24, poet Joni Wallace read in Hardman Hall as part of the La Sociedad para las Artes.
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