OPWC: Aug. 25

Trowbridge, McDougall to read work at monthly meeting

By Ginny Masullo
TFW Contributing Writer

Ozark Poets and Writers Collective hosts a double header at 7 p.m. Aug. 30 at Nightbird Books in Fayetteville. Widely acclaimed poet Jo McDougall, author of five poetry collections, will read from her newly released “Daddy’s Money: A Memoir of Farm and Family” (University of Arkansas Press, 2011). William Trowbridge, who has been hailed as one of America’s wittiest poets, will be reading from his recently published collection of poetry “Ship of Fool” (Red Hen Press, 2011).

Daddy’s Money

McDougall, best known for spare, vivid poetry collections including “From Darkening Porches” and “Towns Facing Railroads,” makes a remarkable prose departure with “Daddy’s Money.” McDougall’s sharp imagistic voice coupled with tight economical lines weaves personal history, regional agricultural history and an underlying current of both strong and broken family bonds into a perfectly pitched tapestry of Arkansas Delta life from the 1930s to now.
McDougall’s grandfather, father and husband were all Arkansas Delta rice farmers. When McDougall’s mother died in the family home, her father preserved the place as something of a solitary museum, forbidding both of his daughters from touching or removing any of their mother’s keepsakes. When McDougall’s father died several years later, she and her sister, once close, became estranged regarding the settlement of the family estate.
With photos, a fine judgment for the historical significance of her family’s life and deeply felt dismay over the dissolution of her sibling bond, McDougall creates an unsentimental memoir that is a page turner and a compliment to the genre of memoir.
When asked what she’ll be reading this Tuesday, McDougall says, “I’ll read something funny, something sad and something joyous,” which is an apt description of “Daddy’s Money.” Included in the book and the reading will be a few of McDougall’s gemstone quality poems.

Ship of Fool

The fool exists in all of us whether we admit it or not. In “Ship of Fool,” Trowbridge brings us to our own fatuous knees as we laugh and cry at visions of our own silly selves. These poems are a perfect balance of melancholy and light.
Trowbridge, in an email interview, says, “Comedy is a significant part of my artistic vision, if that’s not too high-falutin’ a term. I find most of my favorite writers, from Faulkner to Goldbarth, seem to share that vision. The poet John Crowe Ransom once observed that the human condition is ironic, in that we live in two contradictory dimensions at once: the ideal and the real — which despite the Romantics’ desire, can never be unified. There is as much room for comedy as there is for tragedy in such a world.”
William Trowbridge is the author of four other poetry collections including “The Complete Book of Kong” (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2003), “Flickers,” “O Paradise” and “Enter Dark Stranger” (University of Arkansas Press, 2000, 1995, 1989).
Since the University of Arkansas Press published his first three books, Trowbridge, who lives in Missouri and teaches in the University of Nebraska low-residency MFA writing program, maintains his ties to writers who were or are students or teachers at the UA.
Trowbridge and McDougall go back a long way, both publishing over the years with the University of Arkansas Press. They are a perfect fit for a double header, sharing a similar world and literary view.
Fayetteville is one lucky town. We have the University of Arkansas Press who publishes fine writers like McDougall and Trowbridge. We have a great independent bookstore. We have a bevy of writers and lovers of writing like the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective which each month features local, regional or national writers. Sprinkle that with the fine fare and drinks of Brick House Kafe housed in Nightbird and an open mic that encourages creative expression.  All that adds up to a night that will send a cool breeze into your frying soul.

Featured poet probably won’t present anything on ‘Elfes’

By Cat Donnelly
TFW Contributing Writer

Jen Jabaily-Blackburn will read at the Ozark Poets & Writers Collective meeting Tuesday, June 28 at Nightbird Books in Fayetteville.

Jen Jabaily-Blackburn, a recent University of Arkansas MFA graduate and a senior editor for Linebreak.org, will read her work at the Ozark Poets & Writers Collective monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 28 at Nightbird Books in Fayetteville.

Originally from Braintree, Mass., Jabaily-Blackburn has been writing since she was a child but did not write poetry seriously until she was an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. While getting her degree in English, one of her professors told her about the MFA program at the UA.

Her parents recently gave Jabaily-Blackburn a framed poem from when she was about 7 years old, written on memo pad paper that went (with young spelling preserved) “Elfes/Little Elfes/Like to play/On a sunny summer day.” She claims she has not written about any elves since.

She does have a more recent poem in the current issue of Hayden’s Ferry Review and her work has also appeared in Subtropics and Front Porch among other journals. Jabaily-Blackburn reads a lot in order to fuel her writing.

“Sometimes, I’ll write imitations of or responses to other poems and writers. I also like writing about art, myths, folklore,” she says. “It’s how I understand what’s around me.”

Though she reads American poets, Jabaily-Blackburn is drawn to writers and poets from the area of Ireland and the United Kingdom because of the musicality of their languages. Thomas Hardy, Seamus Heaney, Eilean ni Chuilleanain, Eavan Boland, Mary O’Malley, Yeats, Simon Armitage, Rita Ann Higgins and Philip Larkin are some of her favorites.

During her stint as a teaching assistant, Jabaily-Blackburn advised her students to read voraciously.

“You need to know what’s out there and what’s developing in the literary world,” says Jabaily-Blackburn. “Also, I think it’s best to follow your obsessions in your work.”

Jabaily-Blackburn has had a lot of fun editing Linebreak, which updates each Tuesday with a featured poem by one poet that is read by another poet.
Jabaily-Blackburn lives with her husband and a rescued old beagle named Ricky. They will be moving back to the east coast so her husband can pursue his doctoral degree. So join us at OPWC Tuesday night while you can catch her spoken work.

We also encourage you to bring your own poetry to share at open mic. As past featured writer Ashley McHugh said, “[OPWC] really encourages a sense of community, even camaraderie, that’s rare to come across, and the atmosphere is always warm and welcoming.”

Student poetry mag needs donations to continue winning tradition

By Ginny Masullo
TFW Contributing Writer

April is National Poetry Month. Ozark Poets and Writers Collective celebrates this event by honoring the up and coming writers of Fayetteville High School’s literary and art magazine — Connotations — at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 26 at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville.

Connotations, which is in its 28th year, works each year from a theme chosen by the Connotations staff. This year, the dream cycle is the underlying thread throughout the magazine. Banah Ghadbian, who is the poetry editor, finds the dream theme a perfect and fecund match for the making of an art and literary magazine.

In an email interview, she elaborated on the use of the dream cycle for developing the journal.

“The first stage is falling asleep with the short, hypnagogic hallucinations that are hard to distinguish from reality. The bulk of the magazine is REM and non-REM. REM is considered the memory consolidation process in the sleep cycle. We clump together episodic memories and weed out the un-important ones. That stage is where we have placed the meat of our prose and poetry. From what I understand, non-REM comes next and is a little more concrete, less ‘vivid.’ In this stage of the magazine, we have positioned the more concrete images and nonfiction type pieces. The magazine ends with the last stage, the ‘waking up’ similar to the first stage in its short, abstract pieces.”

Visual art is central to the publication. Ghadbian relates that the quality of art from Fayetteville High School artists is astonishing and works to elevate the excellence of their publication. Connotations has won numerous prizes for its work in past years. This mag promises to be a likely candidate for more such awards.

It takes a lot to fund such a stellar magazine, and the student staff usually begins the process with a huge debt. This year they were $8,000 in arrears. Says Ghadbian, “We can use all the contributions we get.”

While the OPWC reading is free, a hat is passed, and the proceeds will go to Connotations. What better way to celebrate the art of poetry and the young artists of our town than to listen to their work and contribute your spare change to their endeavor?
The usual OPWC open mic, with a four-minute time limit for each participant, and Brick House Kafe’s offerings of delicious snacks and libations guarantee a satisfying close to National Poetry Month.

Come on. Take those poems out of your drawers, out of your computers and let them into the April light.