Month: March 2015

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Poetry on Your Plate

Have dinner with three poets at Poetry on Your Plate. You order dinner from one of the many excellent local Carrboro restaurants and bring it over to the Century Center. You’ll get to hear each poet read and share in Carrboro’s wonderful literary community.

Thursday, April 16, 2015
6:30PM – 8:30PM
Carrboro Century Center

Susan Adler George

susan_adler_georgeSusan Adler George is an award-winning published writer, artist and multi-arts educator whose works have been in many regional and national print and online publications. Susan who has an English degree in literature and Creative writing from Towson State University, was tapped to teach several college-level poetry classes and did an intensive master degree course in Shakespearean Comedy. Susan also studied poetry with the NPR com- mentator, essayist, novelist and poet Andrei Codrescu. Susan Adler George integrates art into daily lives – not as a means to become famous, rather as a means to live an honest, purposeful and valuable life.

Tyler Johnson

tyler_headshot_colorTyler Johnson is an author and poet living in Carrboro, NC. He grew up in rural Hanover County, VA, in a log cabin built by his father. His writing is rich with that Southern voice, but influenced by an ear for other dialects and a taste for other cultures. Traditional music and dance are integral parts of Tyler’s life and work. He is a regular contra and folk dancer, and also plays the mandolin, Irish tenor banjo, and guitar. Tyler’s books include The Swamps that Close, Tales from the Red Book of Tunes, and Dancing the Haw. His poems have appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Iodine, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Prai- rie Wolf Press Review.

Bianca Diaz

biancaBianca Diaz is the author of No One Says Kin Anymore, winner of the Robert Watson Poetry Award and published by Spring Garden Press. Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She won Flyleaf Books’ annual poetry contest in 2014 and new poems will appear this spring in San Pedro River Review and The Linden- wood Review. She earned an MFA from George Mason University and is originally from Miami FL.

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Voicings: Danny Gotham

“Dangerous.”

repastThat’s how Danny Gotham describes performing live. And he should know, having been on stage with some of the best singers and musicians in the business. Gotham’s newest album is called “Repast” and it draws on many of those singers and musicians to create a generous feast of songs.

I sat down with Danny recently to hear his thoughts on the album, the differences between making your own recording and supporting others, and the value of making music in community.

Learn more about Danny Gotham’s current projects and thoughts on music, life, and baseball at DannyGotham.com.

Voicings is a series of interviews conducted by writer Tyler Johnson featuring writers, musicians, artists, and thinkers in their own words.

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The Chimney

My father built the log cabin in which I grew up. It was built beside a Civil War–era farmhouse in the Virginia piedmont. That old farmhouse was in such disrepair that it had to be torn down, but the chimney remained along with portions of the foundation. We re-used many of the building materials and artifacts in our home and work shed.

The presence of the chimney caused me often to wonder about the lives that had gone on before us. It stood there in the evenings, stolidly manning its station as if its owners might return, or were in fact just then going about their lives. I wondered if their lives and dreams somehow became intermingled with our own. Perhaps it is so.

 

The Chimney

What’s in a chimney
long after the house is gone?
There is a length of rusted stove pipe
fallen into what must have been a kitchen
around which children
might have been dressed
after their bath
in the washtub.

One raises walls here in the forest
for a warm place to sleep, a future.
To sit with Mary after sunset,
the lantern setting off her straight jaw
and the lace against her neck
on the blue calico dress she made.
Maybe children.
Maybe tonight.

 

from the collection Dancing the Haw