JRW & Richmond Times-Dispatch present

Thursday, May 29

The Right Words in the Right Order:
Why All Writers Need to Read Poetry

Poetry teaches writers of every stripe how to achieve perfection of language, originality of expression and the thrill of surprising the reader with your words. Come hear five varied, dynamic Richmond poets discuss where they find their inspiration and how they hone their craft. Richmond is a poetry town with a vibrant poetry community open to newcomers. No more asking, "What poetry's got to do with it?" Poetry is here to enlighten and entertain and teach us all to be better writers.

Featuring:

David Wojahn
Ron Smith
Cheryl Pallant
Josh Poteat
Liz Canfield

And your host, JRW board member Virginia Pye

Thursday, May 29, 2008
6:30-8:30 pm
The Eureka Theater
Science Museum of Virginia
2500 West Broad Street
$10 admission includes refreshments
$5 students

Panelists:
David Wojahn's first collection, Icehouse Lights, was chosen by Richard Hugo as a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, and published in 1982. The collection was also the winner of the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Book Award. His second collection, Glassworks, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1987, and was awarded the Society of Midland Authors' Award for best volume of poetry to be published during that year. Pittsburgh is also the publisher of four of his subsequent books. His most recent collection, Interrogation Palace: New and Selected Poems 1982-2004, was published by Pittsburgh in 2006, and was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He has received many fellowships, including ones from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is currently Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University as well as a member of the faculty of the MFA in Writing Program of Vermont College.

Ron Smith is the author of Running Again in Hollywood Cemetery, runner-up for the National Poetry Series Open Competition and the Samuel French Morse Prize (Margaret Atwood and Donald Hall, judges) and published by University Presses of Florida.  His Moon Road:  Poems 1986-2005 (Louisiana State University Press) appeared in October.  At St. Christopher's School, Ron Smith has held the Robert W. Bugg Chair of Distinguished Teaching and the George O. Squires Chair of Distinguished Teaching. He is currently the school’s Writer-in-Residence, the first person ever to hold that title. In 2005, Ron Smith was an inaugural winner of the $10,000 Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry. In 2006 he became a Curator for that prize

Cheryl Pallant is the author of poetry books Into Stillness and Uncommon Grammar Cloth, both from Station Hill Press; several chapbooks from Feral Press and Belladonna Press; and a nonfiction book from McFarland and Company.  Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in several anthologies and in numerous print and online journals such as Fence, Confrontation, HOW2, Tarpaulin Sky, Cafe Irreal, and Oxford Magazine. She was chosen as the 2007 Finalist for the Bechtel Prize for her essay, "Gifting Poetry" and has received three NEA grants in partnership with the Richmond Arts Council. She works as a writing coach, teaches in the English and Dance departments at the University of Richmond, and for the 08-09 school year, will be Visiting Professor at Keimyung University in Korea.

Josh Poteat has published one book of poems, Ornithologies (Anhinga Poetry Prize, 2006), a chapbook, Meditations (Poetry Society of America National Chapbook Award, 2004), and his second book, Illustrating the Machine that Makes the World, is forthcoming from University of Georgia Press/Virginia Quarterly Review (Spring 2009). Over the last few years, he has won prizes from American Literary Review, Bellingham Review, Columbia, Hunger Mountain, Marlboro Review, Nebraska Review, River City, Vermont Studio Center, The Millay Colony, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and many others. Poteat lives in Richmond, VA, where he works as an editor of assorted texts, including art history monographs, junk mail, and TV/radio scripts.

Liz Canfield received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2001. She presently teaches freshman composition and women's studies courses at VCU. Because she is passionate about independent publishing and bookselling, she organizes a reading series for Chop Suey Books, in addition to other community workshops and events that pertain to independent publishing, zines, and activism. She has poems forthcoming in diode journal as well as a letterpress anthology published by VCU in Summer 2008.

Virginia Pye is a fiction writer and poet. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from Wesleyan University. She has taught writing at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, and her short stories and poems have appeared in The North American Review, Streetlight, Perogi Press, tnr and other literary magazines. She is currently Co-Chair of James River Writers and has been awarded residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Acadia Summer Arts Program in Maine. Recently a literary agent has been seeking a publisher for her first novel, West Philly, while she is at work on a new novel that tells the story of three generations of an American family in China.