Women Write Resistance at the Omaha Lit Fest

I hope you’ll join us at the (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest for a Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence Anthology Reading with Leslie Adrienne Miller, Sara Henning, Laura Madeline Wiseman, and Jennifer Perrine

SATURDAY NIGHT, September 13, 7 pm
The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St
Omaha, NE 68108

WWR_poster_omahalitfest

About the Anthology and Event:

Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013), edited by Laura Madeline Wiseman, views poetry as a transformative art. By deploying techniques to challenge narratives about violence against women and making alternatives to that violence visible, the over one hundred American poets in Women Write Resistance intervene in the ways gender violence is perceived in American culture. Indeed, these poets resist for change by revising justice and framing poetry as action. This Omaha Lit Fest reading will include an introduction by the editor and feature several Women Write Resistance poets who will read their poems and others from Women Write Resistance.

About the Poets:

sara henning

Sara Henning is the author of A Sweeter Water (Lavender Ink, 2013), as well as a chapbook, To Speak of Dahlias (Finishing Line Press, 2012). Her poetry, fiction, interviews and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Willow Springs, Bombay Gin and the Crab Orchard Review. Currently a doctoral student in English and Creative Writing at the University of South Dakota, she serves as Managing Editor for The South Dakota Review.

Jennifer Perrine is the author of The Body Is No Machine (New Issues), winner of the 2008 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry, and In the Human Zoo (University of Utah Press), recipient of the 2010 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize. In 2014, she will serve as a member of the U.S. Arts and Culture Delegation to Cuba. Perrine teaches in the English department and directs the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Drake University.

Leslie Adrienne Miller is author of six collections of poetry including Y, The Resurrection Trade and Eat Quite Everything You See from Graywolf Press, and Yesterday Had a Man in It, Ungodliness, and Staying Up For Love from Carnegie Mellon University Press. Professor of English at the University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Houston, an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, an M.A. from the University of Missouri, and a B.A. from Stephens College.

omaha2014

Laura Madeline Wiseman is the author of more than a dozen books and chapbooks and the editor of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). Her recent books are American Galactic (Martian Lit Books, 2014), Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience (Lavender Ink, 2014), Queen of the Platform (Anaphora Literary Press, 2013), Sprung (San Francisco Bay Press, 2012), and the collaborative book Intimates and Fools (Les Femmes Folles Books, 2014) with artist Sally Deskins. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Margie, Mid-American Review, and Feminist Studies. www.lauramadelinewiseman.com

It’s the Beat! and Tuesday with Writers, plus recent readings in Nebraska

radioGroup

I’m going to be interviewed on It’s the Beat! this week and I’m reading with Grace Bauer and Michelle Menting next week at Tuesday with Writers. Here’s the information for those upcoming events:

Interview with Karen Sokolof Jovitch & Jody Vinci
It’s the Beat Radio show, Mighty 1290 KOIL (am)
noon-1pm, Saturday May 3, 2014

Reading with Grace Bauer and Michelle Menting
Tuesday with Writers
7 p.m., May 6, 2014
South Mill, 48th & Prescott
Lincoln, Nebraska

I hope you can catch the radio piece if you’re near a radio Saturday. It will also appear on the site’s website and I’ll link to it here. The South Mill reading with Tuesday with Writers should be great fun!

Last week, I read from Women Write Resistance at the Nebraska Book Festival. It was a great turn out! It was such an honor to read from the anthology that I edited. I read from the preface and from a poem by Wendy Barker. I also read from Intimates and Fools and my new book on the bluebeard myth Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience.

Earlier in the week, I read at Connect Gallery with Sally Deskins and Cat Dixon. It was a great turn out, too!

connect reading image

Finally, Monday I was part of the Bodies of Work: a Collaborative Exhibition and Reading. Sally and I were able to read from Intimates and Fools collaboratively - a real treat!

g. thompson higgins photography did a beautiful job at capturing the event. Thanks, Greg!

bodies of work 3

I was graciously interviewed with Rachel Mindrop by Michael Lyon on KIOS-FM early that same morning. It was so much fun! Thanks, Michael!

npr_interview2

If you missed the airing, you can listen to the mp3 of Bodies of Work on KIOS-FM, Omaha Public Radio and Michael Lyon. My poem “The Blue Funeral” is about 3/4ths in.

six months of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence

It’s been six months since Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013) was released. So, what’s been going on?

Rebecca Foust, Ellaraine Lockie, Dawn McGuire and July Westhale WWR reading April 2013

WWR poets have been featured in journals, blogs, and newspapers. These features have included WWR poems, mini-interviews, and stories by several of the poets. I’ve also had the opportunity to talk about WWR in interviews.

“On the Revolutionary and Transformative Effects of Poetry: A Five Part Interview Series with Five Poets from Women Write Resistance” in Les Femmes Folles with WWR poets Rebecca Foust, Gaynell Gavin, Jane Satterfield, Ellin Sarot, and Alexis Krasilosky.

 

Interview on “Friday Live” at the Mill with Marge Saiser and Wendy Jane Bantam on NET radio by William Stibor. (starts 26:50, or 28:23).

 

A Women Write Resistance feature in Menacing Hedge, with interviews with WWR poets Kathleen Aguero, Elliott BatTzedek, Ann Bracken, and Maria Luisa Arroyo and their poems from the anthology.

 

Poetry Crush Special Feature: Women Write Resistance” in Poetry Crush. The feature includes interviews with WWR poets Dawn McGuire, Billie Tadros, Nicole Hospital-Medenia, and Angele Ellis.

 

A feature by Shelby Fleig “UNL lecturer Laura Wiseman curates collection of women’s ‘resistance’ poetry” in the Daily Nebraskan. The feature includes interviews with other WWR poets Deborah McGinn, Lucy Adkins, and Marjorie Saiser.

 

Interview with The Nebraska Girls Lit Hour on the letterpress books Farm Hands and Unclose the Door, the full-length book Sprung, and the anthology Women Write Resistance.

 

An excerpt from Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence in Extract(s).

wwr_lincoln

WWR has been reviewed.

A review of Women Write Resistance in Broad Blogs by Georgia Platts.

 

A review of Women Write Resistance by Grace Cavalieri “May Exemplars” in Washington Independent Review of Books.

 

A review of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence by Sally Deskins in Les Femmes Folles.

WWR at the Polish Hill Arts Festival! 2013

Several WWR readings have taken place in New York City, Philly, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Nebraska, with more to come in Nebraska, California, and elsewhere.

McGinn photo WWR

As such, recordings of recent WWR events are on YouTube and photos have been posted to facebook and twitter.

One WWR poet, Angele Ellis, made a video poem of her WWR piece.

WWR is also in public libraries, thanks to the work of several WWR poets. Copies of WWR have been donated to women’s shelters and crisis centers.

Wiseman photo WWR

And finally, WWR has raised money for three organizations that seek to end gender violence and violence against women.

Bauer photo WWR

What’s next? More WWR features, interviews, and reviews are in press and/or in the works. There’s also more WWR readings taking place in the next few months.

Chavez photo WWR

Finally as editor, I’m so honored to know and work with such amazing poets. I’ve had much support from WWR contributors, editors, designers, writers, poets, and friends in the production and promotion of this anthology. Their work continues to inspire me. It is my hope and the hope of this anthology that when women write resistance their work resists gender violence, changes culture, and makes the world a little better place for us all.

book trailers, times three

There are three Women Write Resistance events coming up in the next few days. If you’re in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Lincoln, I hope to see you there. The bookstore for the Lincoln event is donating a percentage of all WWR book sales to a local women’s crisis center.

Reading of Women Write Resistance in Lincoln with Grace Bauer, Jennifer Perrine, Marianne Kunkel, and Sara Henning
7 pm, September 5, 2013
Indigo Bridge Books, 701 P Street #102
Lincoln, Nebraska 68508

 

Reading of Women Write Resistance in LA with Kathleen Tyler, Cati Porter, Alexis Krasilovsky, Laure-Anne Bosselaar and more (editor in absentia)
8 pm, September 7, 2013
Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

 

Reading of Women Write Resistance in Sausalito with Rebecca Foust, Judy Grahn, Judy Juanita, and Andrena Zawinski (editor in absentia)
Sunset Poetry By the Bay Series hosted by Marin Hickel
7 pm, September 11, 2013
333 Caledonia, Sausalito,CA

My presale period for my forthcoming chapbook, Stranger Still, finished up this weekend. Thank you to all of you who ordered copies! It’s much appreciated and determines the press run at Finishing Line Press. This little book of Martians will ship October 25th, just in time for Halloween. Trick-or-treat!

Finally, just out is my new chapbook First Wife from Hyacinth Girl Press. Yay!

 

recent interviews, news, and poetry

Indigo-Book-Table

I gave an interview yesterday with The Nebraska Girls Lit Hour. It was such fun! I’ve been listening to the interviews Wyatt Underwood and Melissa Alvarado post for some time and have enjoyed listening to them speak with Molly Peacock, Eloise Klein Healy, and many other fabulous poets and writers others. In my interview, I spoke about the letterpress books Farm Hands (2:10-7:50) and Unclose the Door (7:56-46:00), the full-length book Sprung, (58:58-60:52) and the anthology I edited Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (46:04-56:28). (I’m including the times, in case you want to zip to a particular book in the interview.) Thanks Melissa and Wyatt!

 

I was also included in a feature by Shelby Fleig “Spring Stanzas: Professors Pick Poetry Month Favorites” in the Daily Nebraskan with Ted Kooser, Grace Bauer, and Stacey Waite. We discussed our favorite poem. Here’s the picks: “The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare, “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden. “Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry” by Stephen Dunn, and “Her Kind” by Anne Sexton.

 

wwr_CoverImage

Finally, in poetry related news, a feature by Shelby Fleig “UNL lecturer Laura Wiseman curates collection of women’s ‘resistance’ poetry” that runs in the Daily Nebraskan today includes interviews with WWR poets Deborah McGinn, Lucy Adkins, and Marjorie Saiser. Here’s Deborah :

“It was not the appeal of gathering tragedies, but gathering truth, restoration, healing and moving on when possible,” McGinn said. “Nothing is hidden in shame.”

Marge:

“The message we get from our culture is that poems about violence toward women should not be published,” Saiser said. “Keep still and write about something nice. Violence against women: don’t talk about it.”

Lucy:

“This collection deals courageously with difficult and dangerous subjects in a way I have not encountered before,” Adkins said. “The different voices, coming one after another, after another have a cumulative power that I believe will endure for a long, long time.”

Wow. I am endlessly amazed by the fine poets in this anthology. They truly astonish me and I am grateful for their work.

WWR book trailer

Here’s the amazing book trailer for Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence just out from Hyacinth Girl Press.

I so hope you’ll join us at 4-5pm, room 340 Nebraska Union, at UNL Featuring readings from Women Write Resistance, an anthology of poetry that I edited. The collection celebrates the utilization of transformative art in the movement against gender violence in the effort to create a more peaceful world, one woman at a time.

blurbs for Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence

womenwriteresistance

I’m thrilled to share these blurbs from Kwame Dawes, Elizabeth Kennedy, and Nancy Berns who’ve each written a few words for the anthology I’m editing Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Blue Light Press, 2013), forthcoming.

One of the most pernicious forms of violence enacted against women is the silencing of those who have been violated and abused. The poems in Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence constitute a collective shout of alarm and defiance in the face of such silencing. The voices are rich in power, nuance, raw honesty, and unquestionable grace and beauty. This generous and ambitious anthology is a gathering of necessary and affirming poems written by some of the best poets writing in America today.
~ Kwame Dawes, author of Duppy Conqueror (Copper Canyon Press, 2013) and editor of Prairie Schooner

 

Recent events such as Congress’ failure to renew the Violence Against Women Act, or politicians’ ignorant statements about rape, or the US press’ shock over rape in India (as if such things do not happen in the U.S.) all demonstrate the pressing need for continuing education about violence against women. Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence is the perfect resource for such education, ideal for use in introductory and advanced Gender and Women’s Studies courses. The more than 100 poems give fresh insight into women’s experience of various types of violence- war, rape, domestic abuse, incest, intimidation— and their social contexts, while reflecting on root causes of violence, methods of resistance, and visions for a world without violence. The overall effect of women’s voices is powerful, moving the reader beyond the dichotomy of victim versus survivor, to resistance through words and action. The critical introductory essay draws on recent feminist theory to reflect on how this transformation occurs through such techniques as breaking silence, disrupting traditional narratives, language sassing, and the strategic use of anger. The book reminds everyone that violence against women is still unfortunately a prominent part of our society, while giving tools that enhance understanding and resistance.
~ Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, editor of Women’s Studies for the Future (Rutgers, 2005) and co-author of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold (Routledge, 1993)

 

Women Write Resistance draws us into a world of pain and oppression, but also hope. Words often fail to describe the violence women endure. However, through poetry, these women capture the trauma experienced by so many. The stories of abuse painted in the poems leave a haunting legacy and dare us to stand up against the violence. Their survival and courage to speak out gives us hope that change can happen.
~ Nancy Berns, author of Framing the Victim: Domestic Violence Media and Social Problems (Aldine Transaction, 2004) and Closure (Temple University, 2011)

Thank you Nancy, Liz, and Kwame!