NEW Poetry Workshops in Merida, Mexico
January 10 - 17, 2009
Beginning in January, 2009, U.S. Poets in Mexico will host a faculty of distinguished contemporary American and Mexican poets in the colonial city of Merida each year for one week. Our program will focus on poetry workshops and readings, and will also include lectures and Spanish lessons. Faculty for 2009 includes Cornelius Eady, Forrest Gander, Bob Holman, Maureen Owen, Pedro Serrano and C.D. Wright. Readings by contemporary Mexican poets will be featured. In January 2009, Coral Bracho from Mexico City and Valerie Mejer from San Miguel de Allende will be featured. A USPIM Poetry Prize will be awarded annually to a Mexican poet.
We will also travel as a group on two day trips each year: one to a sacred site and one to an ecological reserve or place of natural beauty. In January, 2009 we will visit Uxmal and Celestรบn Reserve. Our yearly workshops will coincide with Merida's annual Festival of the City. Merida will be alive with nightly performances of music, literary events, art exhibitions, dance, theater and film, celebrating the anniversary of their founding.
Prospective participants can expect an energetic, productive and inspiring program. Please see below for details about our
talented faculty for 2009!
Watercolor by Elizabeth Bishop, "Merida, from the roof" 1942
Collectively, our 2009 Faculty Poets represent: 3 Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellow, 3 Lannan Foundation Fellowships, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, 2 Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative North American Poetry, several NEA Fellowships, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, winner of the Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets, a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, 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, an American Book Award winner, 3 Emmys, a Bessie Performance Award, an International Public Television Award, a Barnes and Noble "Writers for Writers Award" by Poets & Writers, a Robert Creeley Award, a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and more...