Of Darkness and Angels  


 

The premier poetry event of this year’s Festival of the Book in Charlottesville was “Shrines to Longing,” the March 20 reading by Charles Wright, America’s current (20th) poet laureate, and Mary Szybist, who was a student in the University of Virginia’s MFA program when Wright was on its faculty. Both poets attended the Iowa Writers Workshop. Both have a distinctly Judeo-Christian flavor to their work. The 79-year-old Wright read from his 24th book of poems, Caribou, Szybist from her prize-winning second volume, Incarnadine. Although the full house at UVA’s Culbreth Theater was clearly entranced by … Continue reading Of Darkness and Angels  

Urban Minimalism Comes in Many Colors


 

  Thomas Michael Gillaspy, a state legal affairs analyst and photographer based in Sacramento California, focuses on color in urban minimalism. “Architecture interests me because of its relationship to the urban environment. I think it is our attempt to bring order to the natural world,” says Gillaspy. “Color evokes emotion for me. And in architecture, I like to find patterns, the repetition of geometries, the way we attempt to make order in the urban environment. It is exhilarating to find form and pattern in unexpected places.”     Gillaspy creates order from urban overload photographing surprising subjects up … Continue reading Urban Minimalism Comes in Many Colors

Are You Going To the Fair?


 

The 21st annual Virginia Festival of the Book opens in Charlottesville this coming Wednesday, March 18. I do recommend it. An amazing assortment of programs will be offered. Find the whole wonderful schedule at  https://vabook.org/ I’m not touting for any particular one of them (there are so many and they are so excellent) but I do find myself thinking about what it means to go to a festival — a very old habit of the human race. It happens today that I’m thinking about Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales, because they’re such a nice frame for thinking … Continue reading Are You Going To the Fair?

Kay Redfield Jamison Festival of the Book


 

In 1995 Kay Redfield Jamison published her ground-breaking memoir, An Unquiet Mind, A Memoir of Moods and Madness.  For my husband who was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in 1987, and myself living through his manic breakdown, Redfield’s memoir was the revelatory longed-for message in a bottle of bi-polar disorder. Jamision’s personal narrative changed my perspective on manic behavior and her insights altered forever the way I understand and react to those diagnosed as bi-polar. I pick up my copy of Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind heavily underlined and re-read a passage: “People go mad in idiosyncratic ways. … Continue reading Kay Redfield Jamison Festival of the Book

Nothing Stays Long Enough to Know


 

“Nothing stays long enough to know. How long since we’ve been inside anything together the way these birds are inside this tree together, shifting, making it into a shivering thing”   —Mary Szybist, “Too Many Pigeons and One Dove,” Incarnadine [Graywolf Press, 2013]   The cedar tree on the corner of the lot must remain. So says Margaret, 96, and refusing to let poor sight and hearing keep her from knowing. This was the deal made back then: The place where we now live, a parsonage, could be built and the land would be given … Continue reading Nothing Stays Long Enough to Know