Merida, January 2009

Faculty Poets:                                                 Featured Readings:

C.D. Wright                                                     All Faculty Poets
Bob Holman                                                    Briceida Cuevas Cob (Campeche)
Mónica de la Torre                                          Coral Bracho (Mexico City)
Jack Collom                                                    Valerie Mejer (San Miguel de Allende/NYC)
Forrest Gander  
Jonathan Harrington


In addition to having published numerous books of poetry, our faculty have applied their writing and efforts to drama, librettos for operas, spoken word performances, music, novels, eco-poetics, teaching poetry to children, artistic book collaborations and more. Please see below for an overview of the many awards that our 2009 Faculty have earned.



Collectively, our 2009 faculty poets represent an abundance of awards: 2 Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellow,
3 Lannan Foundation Fellowships, 4 NEA Fellowships, awards from The Howard Foundation and The Whiting Foundation,
a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts award recipient, a Before Columbus American Book Award winner for Poetry,
a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, a PEN translation Fund award recipient, an American Book Award winner, 1 Pushcart Prize,
3 Emmys, an International Public Television Award, 1 Bessie performance award, a Barnes and Noble "Writers for Writers Award"
by Poets & Writers, a Robert Creeley Award from the American Academy of Arts and Science, a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize,
and more.

Merida Faculty - January 2009:  C.D. Wright

Photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson


C.D. Wright was born and raised in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.  

C. D. Wright is the author of the following books of poetry:
Rising, Falling, Hovering, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA) 2008
One Big Self: An Investigation, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA) 2007
Like Something Flying Backwards: New and Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Editions (Newcastle, England) 2007
Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil, (poetry, memoir and essay) Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA) 2005
Steal Away: Selected and New Poems, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA)  2001
Deepstep Come Shining, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA) 1998
Tremble, Ecco Press (Hopewell, NJ) 1996
Just Whistle: A Valentine, photographs by Deborah Luster, Kelsey Street Press (Berkeley, CA) 1993
String Light, University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA) 1991
Further Adventures with You, Carnegie-Mellon University Press (Pittsburgh, PA) 1986
Translations of the Gospel Back Into Tongues, State University of New York Press (Albany, NY) 1981
Terrorism (chapbook), Lost Roads Publishing (Fayetteville, AR) 1979
Room Rented by a Single Woman (chapbook), Lost Roads Publishing (Fayetteville, AR) 1977
Alla Breve Loving (chapbook), Mill Mountain Press (Seattle, Washington) 1976

C.D. Wright's poetry is included in numerous anthologies, including:
American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006)
New Writings on Motherhood and Poetics, edited by Patricia Dienstfrey and Brenda Hillman, Wesleyan University Press
   (Middletown, CT) 2002
An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate Diversity of Their Art, edited by Annie Finsh and Erin Belieu, University of
    Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI) 2001
Poetry Performed, edited by Elise Paschen and Rebekah Mosby, Sourcebooks 2001
The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, edited by Cray Nelson, Oxford University Press (New York, NY) 2000
The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, eds. Michael Collier and Stanley Plumly, Published for: Bread
    Loaf Writers' Conference and Middlebury College Press by University of New England Press 1999

Other:
One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana, photographs by Deborah Luster, Twin Palms (Austin, TX) 2003
Editor: Ploughshares, 2002-2003
Contributing Editor: Free Verse (Internet journal) 2001
Editor: Besmilr Brigham, Run through Rock: Selected Short Poems of Besmilr Brigham, Lost Roads Press (Barrington, RI) 2000
Contributing Editor: Five Fingers Revise, 1991-1997

C.D. Wright has been a contributor in many periodicals, including American Letters and Commentary, Brick, Chair, Conjunctinos, Fense, Document, Ironwood, American Poetry REeview, New Yorker and Sulphur.

In 1994, C. D. was Poet Laureate of Rhode Island and held that post from 1995-1999.  She also authored two state literary maps, one for Arkansas, her home state and one for Rhode Island. With photographer Deborah Luster, she published One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana, a large format, limited edition art book. The project won the Lange-Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and their collaboration exhibited at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City, and the Corcoran Museum in Washington, D.C. among others. On a fellowship for writers from the Wallace Foundation, she curated a “Walk-in Book of Arkansas,” an exhibition that toured throughout her native state for two years.

She received a B.A. from the University of Memphis and an M.F.A. from the University of Arkansas.  She was a lecturer in poetry, writing and publishing at San Francisco State University from 1979-1981 and joined the faculty of Brown University in 1983.  She has held Visiting Faculty positions at the Burren School of Art in County Clare, Ireland, at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and as 2004 Elliston poet-in-residence at the University of Cincinnati.  From 1998-2000 C.D. was a member of the board of directors of the Howard Foundation, and a member of the board of directors of Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.  C.D. Wright edited Lost Roads Publishers with her husband, Forrest Gander, for 30 years.

C. D. Wright is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Lannan Foundation. Steal Away: Selected and New Poems was a finalist for the 2003 Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2004 she was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In 2005, she was given the Robert Creeley Award and elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Ms. Wright is currently Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English at Brown University near Providence, Rhode Island.

“No single description adequately captures Wright’s work; she is an experimental writer, a Southern writer, and a socially committed writer, yet she continuously reinvents herself with each new volume.” — The MacArthur Fellows Program

On Rising, Falling, Hovering:   "C.D. Wright is one of America’s most compelling and idiosyncratic poets—an artist who has developed a unmistakable voice and penetrating vision. As Publishers Weekly noted in a starred review of her last book, “Wright gets better with each book, expanding the reach of her art; it seems it could take in anything.” Wright’s new book, Rising, Falling, Hovering, is an interweave of deeply personal and politically ferocious poems that write into the realities of our times—from illegal immigration and the specific consequences of Empire to the challenges of parenting and the honesty required of human-to-human relationship... "  -- Copper Canyon Press

More about C.D. Wright
More about C.D. Wright at the Poetry Foundation website
and at the American Academy of Poets website

Merida Faculty - January 2009:  Bob Holman



Recently dubbed a member of the "Poetry Pantheon" by the New York Times Magazine and featured in a Henry Louis Gates, Jr. profile in The New Yorker, Bob Holman has previously been crowned "Ringmaster of the Spoken Word" (New York Daily News), "Poetry Czar" (Village Voice), "Dean of the Scene" (Seventeen), and "this generation's Ezra Pound," (San Francisco's Poetry Flash).

From Slam to Hiphop, from performance poetry to spoken word, Bob Holman has been a central figure in the reemergence of poetry in our culture. The series he produced for PBS, the United States of Poetry, features over sixty poets including Derek Walcott, Rita Dove, Czeslaw Milosz, Lou Reed and former President Jimmy Carter, as well as rappers, cowboy poets, American Sign Language poets, and Slammers. USOP lives on as an anthology from Harry Abrams Publishers (in its second printing), a home video from KQED, and soundtrack CD from Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records, a label Holman co-founded. He has appeared widely on TV: "Nightline," "Good Morning America," "ABC News Magazine," MTV's "Spoken Word Unplugged," and "The Charlie Rose Show," among others. The NEA has announced major preproduction support for his new poetry media project, the World of Poetry (worldofpoetry.org), the world's first digital poetry anthology.

Holman's latest collection of poems, A Couple of Ways of Doing Something, a collaboration with Chuck Close, was published by Aperture in 2006. The book consists of twenty daguerreotypes by Close and twenty praise poems by Holman, one for each of the artists Close photographed. The collaboration is also a traveling exhibition, with stops in New York, Toronto, Tacoma, and Santago, Chile through 2009.

In 1993, Tin Fish published Bob's translations (from Chinese, with the author) of Zhang Er's Carved Water. His selected, The Collect Call of the Wild, from Henry Holt was proclaimed "the first poetic drop-kick into the new millennium" by Next magazine and "Impressive (to say the least)" by Robert Creeley. He co-edited Aloud! Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café (also from Henry Holt), winner of the American Book Award, having helped reopen the Cafe in 1989, where he ran the infamous Poetry Slams through 1996. Holman's first CD, In With The Out Crowd, was produced by needle-drop wizard Hal Willner.  Backed by Chris Spedding, Wayne Kramer, and Bobby Neuwirth, the album moves from rock to country to ballad, shot through with urgent humor and what can only be called, "poetry." Lou Reed says it is "an astonishing achievement." His new CD, The Awesome Whatever, "Holman's mastery shows that the poetry-music tradition is alive and well," says Russell Banks.

Bob fronts poetry into daily life by all means: as Curator for the biennial People's Poetry Gathering (peoplespoetry.org) in NYC, he brings together oral poetry traditions from Africa (griot), Brazil (cordel), NYC (Braggin Rites), Mexico (decima) and other countries with hobo poets (U. Utah Phillips), cowboys (Wally McRae), dub (Linton Kwesi Johnson), blues poets (Sterling Plumpp) and rockers (Ani DiFranco) and the proverbial others in a 3-day "populist bacchanal" (Stanley Kunitz) that attracted 12,000 people on April 03, 2006. His current work for the Gathering is focused on the poetry of endangered languages (including Maya).  Bob is also poetry guide at About.com (poetry.about.com), consistently a banner site with 7,000 "Museletter" subscribers and 35,000 hits per week.

He won three Emmys over six seasons producing Poetry Spots for WNYC-TV, received a Bessie Performance Award, has twice been Featured Artist at the Chicago Poetry Video Festival and won International Public Television Awards for USOP and Words in Your Face, a production of the PBS series "Alive TV." He produced the reading series rAP mEETS pOETRY with Bill Adler, which resulted in the "Fighting Wordz" intersticials on MTV. Holman, Adler, and Sekou Sundiata created "the world's first" poetry record label, Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records (1995-8) -- releases included Sekou Sundiata, Flippin the Script: Rap Meets Poetry, Allen Ginsberg's The Ballad of the Skeletons, with music by Paul McCartney and Philip Glass, young poets Wammo, Michele Serros and Beau Sia; major voices Maggie Estep and The Last Poets and Hal Willner's Edgar Allan Poe feast, with stories and poems read by Iggy Pop, Dr. John, Christopher Walken and others, and the definitive 4-CD William Burroughs box, nominated for a Grammy.

In 2001, the New York University Fales Library acquired his Poetry Media Library, calling it "the finest of its kind," and has recently received NEA funding to catalogue and digitize the collection. In 2004-5, Holman was Poet in Residence at WNYC Radio , New York's NPR station, reading a poem, generally contemporary and related to the day's events, on Morning Edition every week or so; he is also that station's guide to spoken word recordings, appearing monthly on Sound Check. Work has begun on a radio series, "Live from the Bowery Poetry Club!"

Holman was founding editor of the NYC Poetry Calendar (1977), curated reading series at St. Marks Church (he worked at the Poetry Project for seven years), the Whitney Museum, the Public Theater, and other locales. He has toured the world with his "amazing traveling word show," and is Artistic Director of the touring company Real Live Poetry. He is a firm believer in the United States of Poetry, with recent stops at National Poetry Slams (he coached the 1997 championship Mouth Almighty team), the Annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, and the American Sign Language Literary Conference in Rochester, New York. He has been awarded three NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in Poetry, been funded by the NEA, New York State Council on the Arts and the Lannan Foundation. In 2004, he became a Def Poet, appearing on HBO's Def Poetry Jam.

In 2000, Bob hosted the International Poets Cabaret at the Frankfurt Book Fair where he also premiered his SemiCento, a polyglot poem gathered line-by-line from poets around the world, and he performs regularly with David "Pere Ubu" Thomas in the punk opera, Mirror Man. He presented his paper, "The Reemergence of the Oral Tradition in the Digital Age" at the Pan-African Literature and Languages Conference in Asmara, Eritrea; and is the recipient of Curbstone Press's "Honored Poet" award. In summer 2002, he was the Featured Artist at the First International Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin, screening USOP, judging the competition, and performing his multimedia poem "@the Café" with a live DJ.  In 2003 he was awarded the Barnes and Noble "Writers for Writers Award" by Poets & Writers, and represented the USA in Poetry Africa in Durban. In 2004, he performed in Warsaw, teaching a workshop in performance poetry, and in Denmark, at the huge Roskilde Rock Festival. In 2008, he was a US delegate to the Kolkota Book Fair and also to the VIII International Poetry Festival of Costa Rica.

From 1998-2002, he was Visiting Professor of Writing and Integrated Arts at Bard College, where he adapted and directed John Ashbery's book-length poem, Girls on the Run and SUDDEN EKPHRASIS!: The Poetry of Robert Kelly. Since 2003, he has taught Exploding Text: Poetry Performance at Columbia University, as a graduate course in the School of the Arts. In 2007 he began teaching a new course, Art and the Political Sphere at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

The opening in 2002 of the Bowery Poetry Club in downtown Manhattan, is a dream realized for Bob. He has spent a life in poetry, and the Club, with happenings seven days a week, a coffee shop, bookstore, bar and performance space, is its physicalization. 
A non-profit, Bowery Arts & Science, Ltd., works with the Club for educational, outreach, and technological pursuits. The Club is an open door twixt art and technology, content and media. In 2005, Bowery Arts & Science and The Open Center launched Study Abroad on the Bowery, a certificate course in applied poetics with Anne Waldman as Co-Artistic Director with Bob. Spring 2006 marked the beginning of collaborative programming for SAB! with the CUNY Grad Center; the summer session is centered on the Summer Institute for Social Justice and Applied Poetics, a program run in tandem with Youth Speaks.

More about Bob Holman here and here               Interview with Bob by Monica de la Torre here

Merida Faculty - January 2009:  Jack Collom



Jack Collom currently lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Jack Collom is the author of the following books of poetry:
2008    Situations, Sings, with Lyn Hejinian, Adventures in Poetry (New York)    
2007    In the Wind, Baksun Books (Colorado)    
2006    Exchanges of Earth and Sky, Fish Drum Press (New York)    
2004     Extremes and Balances, Farfalla Press (Colorado)    
2003    On Laughter: A Melodrama (with Lyn Hejinian), Baksun Books (Colorado)    
2001    Red Car Goes By: Selected Poems 1955-2000, Tuumba Press (California)    
2000    Sunflower (with Lyn Hejinian), The Figures (Massachusetts)    
1999    POlEMicS (with Anselm Hollo & Anne Waldman), Autonomedia (New York)    
1998    Dog Sonnets, Jensen-Daniels (New Jersey)    
1997    Entering the City, Backwaters Press (Nebraska)    
1996    Calluses of Poetry, (CD with Ken Bernstein), Treehouse Press (Colorado)    
1996    The Task, Baksun Books (Colorado)    
1996    Wicker (with Lyn Hejinian), Rodent Press (Colorado)    
1995     What a Strange Way of Being Dead, Rodent Press (Colorado)    
1992    8-Ball, (with illustrations by Donald Guravich), Dead Metaphor Press (Colorado)    
1990    Arguing with Something Plato Said, Rocky Ledge Editions     (Colorado)    
1981    The Fox, United Artists (New York)    
1977    Little Grand Island, the Press (Nebraska)    
1976    Squirrel Tails, Lodestar Press (Colorado)    
1974    Ice, Lodestar Press (Colorado)    
1972    Blue Heron & IBC, Grosseteste Press (England)    
1967    Wet, privately printed
1966    April, First Half, privately printed

 Jack Collom is also the author of the following books on and of writing by children:
1998:    Slow Flash of Light, Teachers & Writers Collaborative (New York)    
1994:    Poetry Everywhere (with Sheryl Noethe), Teachers & Writers Collaborative (New York)  
1985     Moving Windows, Teachers & Writers Collaborative (New York) 

Jack's poems have been included in numerous anthologies, including:
Hang Together, “Hanging Loose,” eds. and Press, 1987
Up Late: American Poetry Since 1970, Andrei Codrescu, ed., Four Walls Eight Windows, 1987
Nice to See You, Anne Waldman, ed., Coffee House Press, 1991
Out of This World, Anne Waldman, ed., Crown Publishers, 1991
Disembodied Poetics, Waldman & Schelling, eds., University of New Mexico Press, 1994
Tumblewords, William L. Fox, ed., University of Nevada Press, 1995
American Poets Say Goodbye to the 20th Century, Codrescu & Rosenthal, eds., Four Walls Eight Windows, 1996
Festschrift for Jackson Mac Low, Levy & Harrison, eds., Crayon, 1997
Thus Spake the Corpse, Codrescu & Rosenthal, eds., Black Sparrow Press, 1999
Pacific Northwestern Spiritual Poetry, Charles Potts, ed., Tsunami, Inc., 1998
Poems from Penny Lane, Gary Parrish, et al, eds., Farfalla Press, 2003
The Best American Poetry 2004, Lyn Hejinian, ed., Scribner, 2004

Selected Translations have appeared in:
Floating Bear, Diane di Prima, ed., 1966
Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature, Salma Jayyus, ed., Columbia University Press, 1992
and others. 

Mr. Collom's awards and grants include: the 2005 recipient of the Ann Levy Award for Artistic Excellence (CO) and in 2001 the Mayor of the city of Boulder, CO designated an official "Jack Collom Day"; several Boulder Arts Commission Grants for Poetry-in-the-Schools;  the 2000 Tesser Award for Arts Collaboration and Performance, with musicians Ken Bernstein and Art Lande;
a 1998 SCFD (Colorado) award for poetry by children ;   1995 &1998 CO Visions Grants (with Ken Bernstein), poetry/music;   
1995, 1996, and 1998   NEODATA Endowments (Boulder), poetry by children, poetry/music CD; 1995 Addison Mini-grant (Boulder), collaborative poetry book;  1994, 2005 NEODATA Endowment (Boulder), ecology poetry/performance by children;  1992, 1995, and 1997  Boulder Arts Commission, small press publication;  1991-2 NEODATA Endowment (Boulder), poetry/book publication (children);  1990  & 1980 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships, and 1966-77 CCLM grants for "the" poetry magazine.

Mr. Collom has given numerous poetry readings, including:  Plenary Talk, Poetic Ecologies Conference, Université Libre de Bruxelles; The Poetry Project, NY; The Poetry Center, SF; New College, SF; Northern Illinois Univ., Chicago;
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder; Naropa Institute (University), Boulder; Colorado State Univ., Ft. Collins; Amerika Haus, Heidelberg, Germany; Schule für Dichtung in Wien & Hundertwasser Haus, Vienna, Austria; Distinguished Poet Series, Tacoma; New Mexico State University, Las Cruces; San Jose, Costa Rica; Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Flagstaff; Medicine Show, NY.

Mr. Collom received an MA in English, Lit.erature and a BA in English, both from the University of Colorado and an earlier BS  degree in Forestry, Science and Arts from Colorado A&M.  He has taught writing workshops at many venues, including the Poetry Project in NYC, the Steamboat Springs CO Writing Conference and currently at the Naropa University and at the Young Audiences & Aesthetic Arts Institute of Colorado.  His former teaching positions include the University of Colorado, Metro State College in Denver, CO and City University of New York.

Mr. Collom is currently Adjunct Professor and Outreach Director, Writing and Poetics Department at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where he has taught Eco-Lit (Ecology Literature) for over ten years, and also teaches in the Poet-in-Schools program in Colorado, New York, Nebraska, Idaho and Wyoming.


You can read more about Mr. Collom's eco-poetics here
A review of his book,  Exchanges of Earth and Sky at Jacket Magazine #33 online

Merida Faculty - January 2009:  Mónica de la Torre

...

Mónica de la Torre was born and raised in Mexico City and moved to New York City in 1993.


Mónica is author of the following books of poetry:
Public Domain, Roof Books, The Segue Foundation (New York, NY)  to be released in October, 2008
Talk Shows, Switchback Books, (New York, NY)  2007 (her first book of poetry in English)
Acúfenos, Taller Ditoria, (Mexico City, MX)  2006 

Other projects:
Co-Editor with Michael Wiegers and one of many translators, Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry, Copper Canyon
     Press (Port Townsend, WA) 2002 (an extremely well received multilingual anthology)
Editor and translator of the bilingual volume:  Poems by Gerardo Deniz, Taller Ditoria (Mexico City, MX) 2000 and Lost Roads Press 
    (Gerardo Deniz is one of Mexico's leading neo-Baroque poets)
Co-translator with Rosa Alcalá of Malvas Orquideas del Mar (Mauve Sea-Orchids ) by Lila Zemborain, Belladonna Press
Co-author with artist Terence Gower of the art book: Appendices, Illustrations & Notes, Small Art Press, 2000 available on Ubu.com

Mónica de la Torre's work has appeared in many literary journals, including: Art on Paper, BOMB, Bombay Gin, Boston Review, Chain, Circumference, Fence, Mandorla, Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, and Twentysix.

Mónica was formerly the Editor of The Brooklyn Rail, the coordinator of literature and visual arts programming at the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York and is currently Senior Editor at  BOMB Magazine.  She taught at the 2007 Naropa Institute's Summer Workshops.

Mónica has participated on the panel of many Conferences, including:
"Our Life in Poetry: Artifice and Personae" at the Philoctetes Center-The Multi-Disciplinary Study of Imagination,  NYC April 2008
“Taking Mexican Photography to Task: The Creencias of Maruch Sántiz Gómez”
“Agentes culturales en América Latina; "Nuevos enfoques y perspectivas para un área de estudios en vías de expansión,” Latin              American Studies Association, March 2006
“The Warnings of Maruch Sántiz Gómez,” Graduate Student Conference on "Cultural Agents," Harvard University, February 2005
"Ndabua Isien/Nest of Images: Contemporary Indigenous Poetry of Mexico” (panel moderator) in conjunction with the exhibition:
     The Aztec Empire, Guggenheim Museum, December 2004
“Out of the Labyrinth: Mexican Literature Today,” Americas Society, November 2004

Ms. de la Torre holds a B.A. in Political Science from ITAM (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México), Mexico City, an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University.  Monica is currently completing her doctoral dissertation on Latin American conceptual poets of the 1970's at Columbia University in New York City.

Mary Jo Bang introduces Emerging Poet: Mónica de la Torre in 2002 at the Academy of American Poets website
You can read a poem or two of Mónica's  here    and her essay Into the Maze: Oulipo   here
A 2007 webcast of Mónica reading, with a remarkable introduction by Robert Hass-The Lunch Poems Series, Univ. of Berkeley: here

A review of Ms. de la Torre and Mr. Wieger's book: Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry: "American readers haven't seen a collection of contemporary Mexican poetry since Mark Strand edited New Poetry of Mexico in 1970, observes Eliot Weinberger, distinguished scholar and translator of Octavio Paz, in his grounding introduction to this unique and substantial bilingual anthology. Since then, an entire "post-Paz generation" of poets has emerged, including the 31 gifted men and women showcased here, most writing in Spanish but some in indigenous languages. Spacious and accommodating, this work presents a generous number of gracefully translated poems by each poet, a felicitous in-depth approach that makes this much more than a sampler, and a sound decision given the poets' propensity for long, dreamy poems. Sensuality is ever-present, as is an intimate connection with nature, both classically pure and, in Efraín Bartolomé's poems, under assault. Gods of diverse cultures put in surprising appearances, and many works are metaphysical, although more personal realms are illuminated by Gloria Gervitz and Pedro Serrano, and Josué Ramírez discerns the cosmic on Mexico City streets. This is without doubt a landmark volume, but let's hope that it doesn't stand alone for too long." Donna Seaman of Booklist     More RAVE reviews for this book at: Barnes & Noble

Merida Faculty - January 2009:  Forrest Gander

Photo: Berge

Born in the Mojave Desert in Barstow, California, Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia and spent significant periods in San Francisco, Dolores Hidalgo (Mexico), and Eureka Springs, Arkansas before moving to Rhode Island.

Forrest Gander is the author of the following books of poetry:
Eye Against Eye, New Directions (New York, NY) 2005
Sound of Summer Running, with photographs by Ron Meeks, Nazraeli Press (Portland, OR & UK) 2005
The Blue Rock Collection, with drawings by Rikki Ducournet, Shoemaker & Hoard in the U.S. (Washington D.C.) also published
    in England) 2004, 2005
Twelve X 12, with art by Tjibbe Hooghiemstra, The Netherlands, 2003
Torn Awake, New Directions (New York, NY) 2001
Science & Steepleflower, New Directions (New York, NY) 1998
Deeds of Utmost Kindness, Universrity Press of New England (Hanover, NH) 1994
Lynchburg, University of Pittsurgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA) 1993
Eggplants & Lotus Root, Burning Deck (Providence, RI) 1991
Rush To The Lake, Alice James Books (Cambridge, MA) 1988

Forrest is the author of a new novel: As a Friend, New Directions (New York, NY) 2008

Books authored by Forrest Gander and translated to other languages:
(Forrest's poems have been translated into half a dozen languages)
Zumba el Transcurrir: Poemas Escojidos,  (Mexico)
Arrancado del Sueno), (Mexico)
Traduciendo a Sáenz y Otros Poemas, (Chile)
Twelve X 12:00, with art by Tjibbe Hooghiemstra, (The Netherlands) 2003

Other projects:
Translator: Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho, New Directions (New York, NY) 2008
Translator, with Kent Johnson: The Night, poems by Bolivian poet Jaime Sáenz, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ) 2006
Editor and translations: Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico, edited and prefaced by Luis Cortés Bargalló, introduction by 
    Hernan Lara Zavala, Sarabande Books (Louisville, KY) 2006
Essays: A Faithful Existence: Reading, Memory and Transcendance, Shoemaker and Hoard (Washington, D.C.) 2005
Translator, with Kent Johnson: Immanent Visitor: Selected Poems of Jaime Sáenz, University of California (Berkeley, CA) 2002
Translator: No Shelter: Selected Poems of Pura López-Colomé, Graywolf Press (St. Paul, MN) 2002
Editor: Mouth to Mouth: Poems by Twelve Contemporary Mexican Women, Milkweed Editions (Minneapolis, MN) 1993
Poetry and Translation (with Carmen Boullosa) Wayland Collegium, Brown University (Providence, RI) 1992

Forrest Gander's poems appear in many literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. Forrest has received two Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative North American Poetry (1993, 1997), a Guggenheim Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, awards from The Howard Foundation (2005) and The Whiting Foundation 'Writer's Award' (1997), a Pushcart Prize, a Pen Translation Fund Award in 2004, the Jessica Nobel Maxwell Memorial Award (from American Poetry Review) (1998).  Forrest was an editor of Lost Roads Publishers with his wife, C.D. Wright, for 30 years.

Forrest holds degrees in both English literature and geology.  He previously was Director of the Graduate Program of Literary Arts at Brown University, Briggs-Copeland Poet at Harvard University, Visiting Professor at the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, Visiting Profsesor at The Burren School of Art in Ireland and Professor of English Literature at Providence College.

Mr. Gander has been a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Brown University since 1999. He teaches courses on EcoPoetics, phenomenology and poetics, Asian-American poetries, Poetry/World/Mind, Latin American Poetry Live and Translation Theory & Practice.

“Forrest Gander is a Southern poet of a relatively hard kind, a restlessly experimental writer . . . . Be ready for a ride.”— Robert Hass

“Gander is a poet of tremendous richness. His lines are not only sharp, they radiate another essential ingredient of poetry: play.” —John Olson

More about Forrest Gander

More about Forrest Gander at the Poetry Foundatdion website

Merida Faculty - January 2009: Jonathan Harrington



In addition to eight books, Jonathan Harrington has published poetry, fiction, and non-fiction in everything from the New York Times to the Texas Review. He received a M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1983. In 1989 he edited New Visions: Fiction by Florida Writers. Tropical Son appeared monthly in Metro Magazine and won the coveted Gold “Charlie” Award for best column of the year from the Florida Magazine Assoc. in 1990. In 1992, twenty-six of these essays were collected in Tropical Son: Essays on the Nature of Florida, and published to wide critical acclaim. After working as an editor at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and teaching Creative Writing for ten years at the University of Central Florida, Jonathan moved to New York City in 1993. In the next ten years he published a series of highly popular mystery novels: The Death of Cousin Rose, The Second Sorrowful Mystery, A Great Day for Dying, St. Valentine’s Diamond and Death on the Southwest Chief. The books appeared in hardback, paperback and book-club editions. Jonathan has published a chapbook of poems, Handcuffed to the Jukebox, and his poetry has appeared in Poetry East, Texas Review, Main Street Rag, Pebble Lake Review, The Shop (Ireland), Green River Review, Black Bear Review, Kentucky Poetry Review, South Florida Poetry Review, The Spectator, English Journal, Skylight, and countless other publications as well being featured on public radio. He has one son, Trevor. Jonathan lives on the Hacienda San Antonio Xpakay near Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.

Merida Featured Reading - January 2009:  Coral Bracho


Coral Bracho was born in Mexico City in 1951. 

Coral Bracho is the author of the following books of poetry:
Firefly Under The Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho, translated to English by poet Forrest GanderNew Directions
   (New York, NY) 2008
Cuarto de Hotel ("Hotel Room"), Ediciones Era S.A. de C.V. 2007
Huellas de Luz ("Tracks of Light"), another reissue of Peces de Piel Fugaz, Ediciones Era S.A. de C.V. 2006
Ese Espacio, Ese Jardin ("That Space, That Garden"), Ediciones Era 2003
Trait du Temps/Trazo del Tiempo, (Brushstrokes of Time) translated to French by Dominique Soucy, Ecrits des Forges 2001
Watersilks, Poetry Ireland (Dublin, Ireland) 1999, translated to English
Of Their Eyes as Crystalline Sand, translated to English by poet Forrest Gander, Duration Press 1999
La Voluntad del Ambar ("The Disposition of Amber"), Ediciones Era S.A. de C.V. 1998
Huellas de Luz ("Tracks of Light") (1994) a reissue of her first book of poems - Peces de Piel Fugaz
Tierra de Entrana Ardiente, ("Earth's Smoldering Core") in collaboration with artist Irma Palacios 1992
Bajo el Destello Liquido: Poesia 1977- 1981 ("Under the Scintillant Liquid") 1988
El Ser Que Va a Morir ("That Being That is Going To Die") 1981 (considered a groundbreaking and enormously important book of
   poetry in Mexico
Peces de Piel Fugaz ("Fish of Fleeting Skin") 1977

Coral Bracho's translated poems are included in the following anthologies:
Líneas Conectadas: nueva poesía de los Estados Unidos (Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico), ed. Luis Cortes Bargallo and
   Forrest Gander as translation editor, Sarabande Books (Louisville, KY) 2006
Reversible Monuments: An Anthology of Contemporary Mexican Poetry, eds. Monica de la Torre and Michael Wiegers, Copper
    Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA) 2002
Medusario: Muestrade Poesia Latinoamericano/a, (A Sampling of Latin American Writing), eds. Roberto Echaverren, Jose Kozer and
    Jacobo Safami, Fondo De Cultura Economico USA, 1996, an anthology of contemporary neo-baroque writing from Latin America
Mouth to Mouth: Poems by Twelve Contemporary Mexican Women, ed. Forrest Gander, Milkweed Editions (Minneapolis, MN) 1993

Other:
A donde fue el Ciempies?, Illustrations by Rafael Parajas, Ediciones Era S.A. de C.V.  2007, poetry for children
Jardin del Mar, Illustrations by Gerardo Suzan, 1993, poetry for children

Coral's poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Bomb, Conjunctions, The Nation, Poetry International and other literary journals, anthologies and periodicals worldwide. Her poems were translated by Tom Boll and poet Katherine Pierpoint for the Poetry Translation Center's 2005 World Poets' Tour.

In 1981, Coral Bracho received the Premio Nacional de Poesia de Casa de la Cultura de Aguascalientes award for her book, El Ser Que Va a Morir.  In 2000, Coral received a Guggenheim Fellowship.  In 2004, she received the Prize Xavier Villaurrutia for her book, Ese Espacio, Ese Jardin.  Coral Bracho is also a translator and holds a doctorate in literature.

Ms. Bracho currently teaches at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City.

“Her work has altered the landscape of Mexican poetry in a way that is comparable to John Ashbery’s in the U.S.” —Poetry magazine

“Coral’s work is so idiosyncratic, it’s hard to emulate.” — José Luis Rivas, Bomb magazine

An Introduction of Coral Bracho by Forrest Gander is here
A translation of a Coral Bracho poem by Forrest Gander, with notes is here
More about Coral Bracho in an article written by Alan Gilbert at the Poetry Foundation website
More info about Coral and several translations of poems at the Poetry Translation Center PoetryTranslation.org
and an audio recording of Coral reading Agua de Bordes Lubricos at the Poetry Translation Center site is here

Merida Featured Reading - January 2009:  Briceida Cuevas Cob


Photo: Pieter Vandermeer


Briceida Cuevas Cob was born in 1969 in Tepakan, Calkiní, in the province of Campeche on the Yucatán Peninsula. She writes in both Yucatec Maya and Spanish languages.

Briceida is the author of one book of poetry:
U yok´ol auat pek´ ti´ u kuxtal pek (The Lament of The Dog In Its Existence), Casa Internacional del Escritor, (Bacalar,
   Quintana Roo, Mexico) 1995

Her poetry has appeared several anthologies:
Palabras de los Seres Verdaderos, Antologia de Escritores Actuales en Lengues Indigenas de Mexico, Tomo Dos: Poesia (Words of
   the True Peoples: Anthology of Contemporary Mexican Indigenous-Language Writers, Volume 2: Poetry), eds. Carlos Montemayor
   and Donald FrischmannTexas University Press 2005
Je Bix K'iin (Como el sol, "Like the Sun"),  INI (Instituto Nacional Indigenista - now CDI-Comision para del Desarollo de los Pueblas 
   Indigenas de Mexico), Rockefeller Foundation, Letras Mayas Contemporáneas, Tercera Series 1, 1998
Tumbén Ik ´t´anil ich Maya´ T´an (Modern Poetry in the Maya Language), (Valencia, Spain) 1994
Flor y Canto (Flower and Song), the INI and Unesco, (Tabasco, Mexico) 1993. Includes work by five indigenous poets from the south

And one book about the daily life of a Maya woman:
Je Bix K'iin (Como el sol, "Like the Sun"), INI (Instituto Nacional Indigenista - now CDI-Comision para del Desarollo de los Pueblas 
   Indigenas de Mexico) (1998) Rockefeller Foundation, Letras Mayas Contemporaneas, Series 3

Briceida's poetry has been published in several literary magazines and newspapers in Quitana Roo, Campeche, Yucatán and Mexico City.

Ms. Cuevas Cob has been a member of the literary group Génali since 1992.  She participated in the Poetry Workshops in Mayan Tongue at the arts center of Calkiní, coordinated by Waldemar Noh Tzec, from 1992 to 1994. In 1996, Briceida received a scholarship from the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes para Escritores en Lenguas Indígenas (Mexico's National Fund for the Culture and the Arts for Writers in Indigenous Languages).  She is a founding member of the Asociación de Escritores en Lenguas Indígenas (Association of Writers in Indigenous Languages) in Mexico. She currently serves as their secretary for professional education.

In 2002, Briceida Cuevas Cob took part in the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam. She has also had the opportunity to participate in conferences and symposiums on indigenous language and literature in Spain, France, United States and Mexico.  She has given extensive readings worldwide, including Harvard University and a night of contemporary indigenous Mexican poetry at both the Guggenheim Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.

An excellent article about her poetry can be found here
And one of her poems here

Merida Featured Reading - January 2009:   Valerie Mejer

 

Poet, painter, and essayist Valerie Mejer was born in 1966 in Mexico City.

Valerie Mejer is the author of the following of poetry:
De Elefante a Elefante, for which she was awarded the International Award “Gerardo Diego 1966” by the Spanish Government
   Geografías de Niebla, Editorial El Tucán de Virginia, (México) 2008
Esta Novela Azul, Editorial El Tucán de Virginia, (México) 2004
Ante el Ojo del Cíclope, Ed Tierra Adentro, (México), 2000

Valerie Mejer's poetry has appeared in several anthologies, including:
El Corazón Prestado, Antología de Poesía de Tema Prehispánico
El Manatial Latente, Muestra de poesía mexicana desde el ahora: 1986-2002

Valerie has translated the following works:
Charles Wright's Apalachia/Apalaquia (in collaboration with E. M. Test)
Forrest Gander's Torn Awake/Arrancado del Sueño
Pascal Petit's The Zoo Father/ El Padre Zoológico (all published by El Tucán de Virginia Press)
and is currently working on translations of Australian poet Les Murray

Her poems in English have appeared in England in Poetry London and in the United States in Hunger Mountain Review and in Translations.  Valerie discovered painting during her travels, during which she created collections of works called visual journals.
In 1996 she received the Critics Award in Mexico City for her design work for a play. She has shown her work mainly in museums, including the Museo Goitia in Zacatecas and La Casa de la Cultura de Italia in Mexico City.

Valerie Mejer has twice been the recipient of grants from FONCA (Jóvenes Creadores). Recently she received a grant from Sistema Estatal de Creadores from the state of Guanajuato to translate the Australian poet Les Murray.

As a poet, Valerie has created visual works for other poets, such as the one recently published in France in the book L’Imperfection de la Lune by Antonio Prete.  She is also owner of the Valerie Mejer Estudio/Galeria at Fábrica la Aurora Centro de Arte y Diseño in San Miguel de Allende.

Valerie's poems can be found at the Poetry London website (Previous Issues) see issue #50  here
and at the Fascicle website (Archives - see Issue #1) here