COFFEE WITH THE POETS AND WRITERS IN HAYESVILLE

 This month we are happy to have Janice Townley Moore as featured reader at Coffee with the Poets and Writers at Joe’s Coffee House, 82 Main Street, Hayesville, NC. We meet at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, August 12.

Janice facilitates the NCWN-West Poetry Critique group that meets monthly at Tri-County College in Murphy, NC. An Atlanta native, Janice recently retired from Young Harris College in Georgia where she was a professor of English for many years. Moore taught creative writing and poetry at YHC, and her special areas of interest include contemporary poetry and Southern literature.

In addition to her teaching duties, she was chair of the YHC Humanities Division for eight years and served 12 years as poetry editor for the Georgia Journal, Moore claimed first prize in the 2009 Press 53 Open Awards and was awarded first place in the Georgia Poetry Society's annual competition in 2011.

Her work has appeared in more than 60 esteemed journals, anthologies and textbooks, including The Georgia Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Contemporary Appalachia, Contemporary Georgia Poets, Women Writing in Appalachia and the Southern Poetry Review.

Janice Moore is author of Teaching the Robins, a poetry chapbook, published by Finishing Line Press in 2005. She is co-author of Like a Summer Peach, a great little book of recipes and poems.

Coffee with the Poets and Writers includes an Open Mic session. This is open to the public and anyone with an original poem or short prose piece is welcome to share it. We ask that prose pieces be no longer than 1500 – 1800 words.

Joe’s Coffee House is known for various kinds of coffee and tea. Water, soft drinks and bagels are available as well. Plan to stay for lunch with us at Angelo’s across the street. We want to get to know you.

Call Glenda  Beall 828-389-4441 or glendabeall@msn.com for more information

Glenda Council Beall

Clay County Representative for NCWN West

glendabeall@msn.com

828-389-4441

www.glendacouncilbeall.com

https://www.facebook.com/glenda.beall

www.profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com

www.glendacouncilbeall.blogspot.com

Chemical fragrances, scented products, perfume and cologne can be harmful to our health. Please do not wear them to classes I teach or to classes at my studio, Writers Circle around the Table. Your thoughtfulness is appreciated. 

 

GEORGIA POETRY SOCIETY with Poets Robert Kinsey and Robert S. King

Georgia Poetry Society will sponsor a Poetry Reading and a workshop on publishing plus an open mic reading, book raffle, book sales and book signing.

Featured Speakers are Robert Kimsey and Robert S. King

WHERE?  Blue Ridge Mountains Arts Association, Blue Ridge, Georgia

WHEN? Friday September 16, 2011 6:30 p.m. 

NO ADMISSION FEES, FREE REFRESHMENTS

Click http://www.georgiapoetrysociety.org/Downloads/BlueRidgeReading.pdf

And Mark your Calendar -(Oct. 2011)

Georgia Poetry Society will sponsor a  Poetry Writing Workshop and Poetry Reading by poet Nancy Simpson at their all day annual meeting at Young Harris College October 29, 2011. Also scheduled to read that day is GPS member Janice Townley Moore.

Janice Townley Moore and Nancy Simpson Honored for New Anthology Publication

Nancy Simpson and Janice Townley Moore, were honored at Coffee With the Poets, (N.C. Writers Network West) March 11, 2009 at Phillips and Lloyd Book Store on the town square in Hayesville, NC. The poets were recognized for having poems included in the recently released anthology, THE POETS GUIDE TO THE BIRDS, edited by Judith Kitchen and former US Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, (2009 Anhinga Press, Tallahassee.)



Nancy Simpson and Janice Townley Moore

Janice Townley Moore read poems from the anthology, most of them related to sounds of birds, for example, “ Songbird” by John Brehm, which she said was one of the best poems in the book. Moore also read “Cardinal” by Bruce Bond, and she read her poem, “Teaching the Robins,” which is the title poem of her chapbook, published at Finishing line Press. “Teaching the Robins,” gives the reader an image of an English teacher attempting to teach the grief poetry of Emily Dickinson to the students in her classroom.

Nancy Simpson read several poems from the anthology, including Linda Pastan’s “The Birds,” and Gray Jacobik’s “ Flamingos.” She also read , “Cranes in August,” by Kim Addonizio and she dedicated the crane poem to poet Maren O. Mitchell who is a proficient poet as well as accomplished at making paper cranes. Nancy Simpson read her poem chosen for the anthology titled, “Carolina Bluebirds.”




The editors of THE POETS GUIDE TO THE BIRDS presented 151 contemporary American poets. Nancy Simpson said, “This is a different kind of field guide. You see a bird but when you look it up in this “poet’s guide”, you will find ten poems listed under Cardinal, thirteen under Crow, only one under Carolina Bluebird, and only one under Nuthatch and so on. Twenty-five poems are listed under Birdsong/Sound.

Editor Ted Kooser expressed the hope that “readers will enjoy this book just half as much as if they’d actually seen all the birds these poems represent.”

Poets attending Coffee With the Poets read their original poems in the open mic reading. Some of those poets celebrating birds were: Karen Holmes, Carole Thompson, Brenda Kay Ledford, Ellen Andrews, Maren O. Mitchell, Ann Cahill, Linda Smith and Glenda Barrett.




Poet Maren O. Mitchell





Poet Karen Holmes




Poet Glenda Barrett, author of WHEN THE SAP RISES, Finishing Line Press



To order a copy of THE POETS GUIDE TO THE BIRDS: www.anhinga.org or www.amazon.com or contact Phillips and lloyd Bookstore in Hayesville, NC.

WATER ON THE HIGHWAY by Nancy Simpson

Water on the Highway moves before me.
Witch Water, I say, as though some sorceress waits,
snapping her crooked fingers to make it disappear.
It is real, I tell you. It evaporates,
or seems to, and it is always there.

Last night a friend talked about going home,
the roadmap she followed, the brdge she had to cross.
As I listened, I studied her words on paper
describing a house with stained glass windows,
a wicker chair, her father's face. I want to believe
poets who say this is the way home, who go and come
traveling lines as concrete and safe as any interstate.

The sun is hot today and my map is marked, open.
I drive home, knowing as I go,
I will have to cross water to get there.


First published in The Georgia Review.
Included in collections Across Water and Night Student.







How and When I wrote the poem WATER ON THE HIGHWAY


In the late 1970s I became serious about writing poetry. I took a writing class at Tri County Community College in Murphy, NC. There I met the man I named my poetry mentor, Steve Harvey. No matter how many classes, workshops, critique sessions and MFA degrees later, when someone asks me who is your poetry mentor, I answer Steve Harvey. He was an English professor at Young Harris College, teaching that one night a week class at the community college. How fortunate for me! Through the years, he remains the instructor who taught me the most about writing poetry.

In the same writing class were other poets already publishing their poems, Janice Townley Moore and Bettie M. Sellers, also both on the English faculty at Young Harris College. They encouraged me in my efforts. In our weekly critique session with Steve Harvey, they astounded me, saying things like, "Send that poem to the Georgia Review." I did not know The Georgia Review was then one of the top five literary magazines in America. I did not know, but I did quickly learn that the universities of America control poetry, that basically the universities of America decide who will be allowed to practice and publish poetry and who will not. I repeated Steve Harvey's class three quarters in a row.

The next year, the same writers continued to meet once a week at the home of Bettie M. Seller in Young Harris, Georgia. Steve Harvey, who was writing short stories at the time, shared his work with us.

I especially remember one night Bettie M. Sellers read a poem she was working on about her father's house. "Sonnet in Stained Glass." The poem influenced me. No doubt about it. Soon after, I wrote a poem, "Water On the Highway." Both Bettie Sellers and I went on to see those two poems published.

Nancy Simpson and Janice Townley Moore - Two of the NC Poets With Poems in the New Bird Anthology titled THE POETS GUIDE TO THE BIRDS

Are you a bird watcher? A Lover of the natural world? Nancy Simpson and Janice Townley Moore are two of the NC poets who had their Poems included in the new bird anthology titled THE POETS GUIDE TO THE BIRDS. Both of these poets live and write in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The anthology contains only bird poems, some of them by the most noted poets writing in America today. It was edited by Judith Kitchen and Ted Kooser and published at Anhinga Press, Tallahassee, Florida, 2009.

Janice Townley Moore's poem is "Teaching the Robins," which is the title poem of her chapbook Teaching the Robins published at Finishing Line Press, 2005. Nancy Simpson's poem is a previously unpublished poem titled "Carolina Bluebirds."




The Poets Guide to the Birds is available at www.anhingapress, at amazon.com and at Phillips and Lloyd Bookstore on the square in Hayesville, NC.