Recent & Past Events

The award is presented to James Beall for his new collection of poetry, ONYX MOON published by New Academia Press. The prize is given in honor of William Meredith, former US Poet Laureate who was a good friend and colleague of Mr. Beall particularly at the Library of Congress when they organized a symposium on science and literature

In 1978, Beall approached William at a poetry reading at the Folger Library while Jim was a Congressional Science Fellow at the Office of Technology Assessment for the U.S. Congress. Their collaboration led to The Science and Literature Symposium in 1981, with Beall as co-moderator. The program featured lectures by the the Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, George Wald, O.B. Hardison (then director of the Folger Library), Sir Fred Hoyle, Gerry Pournelle, and Gene Roddenberry of Star Trek fame, among many others.

Jim Beall is an astrophysicist, poet, and author on issues related to public policy and national defense. He holds the degrees of B.A. , M.S., and Ph.D, all in physics. He is a member of the faculty at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and a senior consultant to the U.S. Government. His first book, HICKEY, THE DAYS was published in 1981 by Word Works, and his second book, Republic was published by Toad Hall Press in 2010. The Italian translation, Repubblica, translated by Sabine Pascarelli was published by Toad Hall Press in 2013. Onyx Moon is his third book published by New Academia Press, a very fine publisher that can hang this title high on their wall of honor.

Wind, rain, volcanoes, jungles, and mountains, appear throughout his poetry, and like Audubon he paints his subjects with exactitude of color and precision of detail. Stars shine brilliantly throughout ONYX MOON as one would expect from a physicist. In his poem, “The Fire on Magdalena Mountain,” he recounts travel to the large array of radio telescopes near Soccoro, New Mexico:

They are like flowers tracking a dark sun.
Those distant instruments listen to the sibilant
stars, stars that mimic no human speech. It is a sound
similar to the wind blowing across old ruins,
a level just beneath hearing, that conjures
beyond our capacity to understand or comprehend.

James Beall’s work is at first an enigma. What to make of his challenging vision, his unique voice, the round-about syntax, his penchant for unfamiliar diction, his seemingly schizophrenic take on the world. For here is a poet blessed with double vision, a man who sees the world with both brain and heart, who is fully at home in his bicameral mind, scientist and mystic at once.

Here we see both the careful scientific method of observation leading to a thesis as well as the appreciation of synchronicity that informs the reality of a Reike practitioner or a shaman. The two chevrons, orange-red on a blackbird’s wings at Gettysburg mirror the late sun, the way the speeches of Pericles or Lincoln help his imaginary listeners understand a cause.

In “Military Intelligence,” soldiers digging a foxhole “will make of his or her small space/ a home of sorts, as carefully in place/ as any nest or den the animals/or insects in their pantomime of thought/ would take as ease.” The soldiers here imitate the creatures around them as do the creatures imitating thought.

Friends and critics have sung Jim Beall’s praises over the years, but one thinks of Josephine Jacobsen’s poem, her shock and pleasure when she comes across a real poet, or Emily Dickenson who says you feel like the top of your head has been taken off when you meet the real McCoy. Here he is. The Foundation is so proud to celebrate this rising star, shining among us. As Mr. Spock would say, “live long and prosper James Beall.”

Announcement of this award comes on January 9th, the ninety-ninth anniversary of Meredith’s birth and 11 years after his death in 2007.

This fall, I had the good fortune to return to Bulgaria through the generous support of a classmate, Bob Storck. I had thought to take a small portion of William’s ashes to the Rila Monastery outside Blagoevgrad where we lived for two years during my Fulbright at the American University. It was to have been a private moment, but friends soon convinced me that this was a “national” event given William’s work to establish a bridge between our two countries when he was US Poet Laureate. And so the event was covered extensively by the Bulgarian media including 24 Hours and Standartnews, among others:

Account of our visit on TRUD Newspaper:

Visit to Luybomir Levchev:

Writers Union Newspaper (go to page 11):
http://sbp.bg/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/br_28.pdf

My training as a Roman Catholic, however, proscribed such a division of a person’s cremains and I had to give some thought to what I was about to do at the monastery. Here is what I wrote in preparation for any media questions about the “theological legitimacy” of what I intended to do. The question sometimes comes up when a loved one has died and has made it clear what they wished by way of burial. Here is how I addressed the question in preparation for the ceremony at the Monastery September 21, 2016:

When I was young, I was taught that in marriage, it was the two people marrying each other who performed the sacrament of marriage and that the priest and assembled friends at the ceremony were only witnesses of the love God expressed in the vow the couple were making to each other. In death as in life, it may be true too that a communal expression of the love felt toward the one who has died, may also be blessed by God – he certainly can not be offended when the creatures he has created reach out to Him for solace and hope for eternal life in a gesture such as this, the formal recognition of dust to dust, letting the spirit of the beloved ride the winds or as Mrs. Lemington says in a poem by William Meredith, “I’d like to drift as ashes over the fields, and give them that much back.” In another poem, Edward John Trelawney says that, “The waters may keep the dead, as the earth may, and fire and air. But dream is my element.” And in dream once, Baba Vanga seemed to Answer the question if one day these mountains would be a final resting place.

As William lay dying, I worried to the Episcopal priest that my education held that one’s cremains could not be partitioned but must lie together in consecrated ground despite William’s desire that his be delivered to the river where we lived. “Ours is a powerful God” the priest told me with great sympathy, “and on the day of judgment he can surely reassemble us for the final resurrection.”

Let these ashes only be a symbol of the spirit of a man whose courage, and talent and humanity has touched so many of us and continues to make its way through the chambers of our heart in America and in his beloved second homeland, Bulgaria. We thank God for such models of humanity, and pray that Christ take him in His loving arms for all eternity.

6:00 RECEPTION AND BOOK DISPLAY FOR POETS CHOICE PUBLISHING

6:30 GREETING AND INTRODUCTION OF WILLIAM MEREDITH FOUNDATOIN BY AMBASADOR STOYTCHEV

6:40 WELCOM BY RICHARD HARTEIS AND INTRODUCTION OF POETS AND GUESTS AND BULGARIAN CULTURAL ATTACHE, TATYANA KARADZHOVA

6:55 PRESENTATION OF FILM ON WILLIAM MEREDITH: Ct. Film on William Meredith (3 MINUTES)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qugmOD162sAFilm on William Meredith

7:00 TOM KIRLIN, WMF SECRETARY READS “THE GOOD DOCTOR” BY PETER MEINKE.

7:05 YOUTUBE CLIP OF PETER MEINKE READING HIS POETRY (ENDS AFTER THE POEM TO HIS MOTHER, DO NOT INCLUDE THE WALLACE STEVENS POEM ETC. SELECTION ENDS AT MINUTE 8:11)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CjwAweavlY

7:15 ANITRA THORHAUG (WIDOW OF THE 2015 WILLIAM MEREDITH AWARDEE FOR POETRY, ANDREW OERKE READS TITLE POEM FROM ELEPHANT CAKE WALK AND “IN THE VILLAGE.”

7:20 YOUTUBE CLIP OF RILA MONASTERY ( 1:30 MINUTES)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryy2K3WTs9Y

7:20 RICHARD HARTEIS READS FROM REUNION (P.140-145 DELETING PHOTOS AND P. 142)

7:25 POET BARBARA GOLDBERG READS ONE POEM, “NOVEMBER” (P,. 13) FROM LAURA BRYLAWSKI-MILLER’S BOOK, FIRST DO NO HARM.

7:30 WILLIAM M. RIVERA READS ONE poem from CAFÉ SELECT.

7:35 ELISAVIETTA RITCHIE READS ONE POEM FROM HARBINGERS.

7:40 JOHNES RUTA READS FROM FIRES ETERNAL MORNING

7:45 YOUTUBE CLIP OF 2016 WILLIAM MEREDITH AWARDEE FOR POETRY, GRAY JACOBIK READING “ANGEL SEX” PLEASE CLIP 26:16 TO 28:41 PORTION OF THE CLIP.

7: 50 QUESTOINS, COMMENTS AND CONTINUING RECEEPTION UNTIL 8:15 MAXIMUM. Â FLYERS TO ORDER BOOKS MADE AVAILABLE TO GUESTS. NOTE: BOOKS CAN NOT BE SOLD AT THE EMBASSY

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5U6Ry4OBO4

This fall, I had the good fortune to return to Bulgaria through the generous support of a classmate, Bob Storck. I had thought to take a small portion of William’s ashes to the Rila Monastery outside Blagoevgrad where we lived for two years during my Fulbright at the American University. It was to have been a private moment, but friends soon convinced me that this was a “national” event given William’s work to establish a bridge between our two countries when he was US Poet Laureate. And so the event was covered extensively by the Bulgarian media including 24 Hours and Standartnews, among others:

Account of our visit on TRUD Newspaper:

Visit to Luybomir Levchev:

Writers Union Newspaper (go to page 11):
http://sbp.bg/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/br_28.pdf

My training as a Roman Catholic, however, proscribed such a division of a person’s cremains and I had to give some thought to what I was about to do at the monastery. Here is what I wrote in preparation for any media questions about the “theological legitimacy” of what I intended to do. The question sometimes comes up when a loved one has died and has made it clear what they wished by way of burial. Here is how I addressed the question in preparation for the ceremony at the Monastery September 21, 2016:

When I was young, I was taught that in marriage, it was the two people marrying each other who performed the sacrament of marriage and that the priest and assembled friends at the ceremony were only witnesses of the love God expressed in the vow the couple were making to each other. In death as in life, it may be true too that a communal expression of the love felt toward the one who has died, may also be blessed by God – he certainly can not be offended when the creatures he has created reach out to Him for solace and hope for eternal life in a gesture such as this, the formal recognition of dust to dust, letting the spirit of the beloved ride the winds or as Mrs. Lemington says in a poem by William Meredith, “I’d like to drift as ashes over the fields, and give them that much back.” In another poem, Edward John Trelawney says that, “The waters may keep the dead, as the earth may, and fire and air. But dream is my element.” And in dream once, Baba Vanga seemed to Answer the question if one day these mountains would be a final resting place.

As William lay dying, I worried to the Episcopal priest that my education held that one’s cremains could not be partitioned but must lie together in consecrated ground despite William’s desire that his be delivered to the river where we lived. “Ours is a powerful God” the priest told me with great sympathy, “and on the day of judgment he can surely reassemble us for the final resurrection.”

Let these ashes only be a symbol of the spirit of a man whose courage, and talent and humanity has touched so many of us and continues to make its way through the chambers of our heart in America and in his beloved second homeland, Bulgaria. We thank God for such models of humanity, and pray that Christ take him in His loving arms for all eternity.

http://www.theday.com/aemusic/20160812/ancient-greek-legend-to-be-performed-at-thames-rivers-edge

On April 18th of the National Poetry Month in the USA, at a sitting of the City Council of New London, CT, Mayor Michael Passero proclaimed Friday, April 22, William Meredith Day in honor of the late USA Poet Laureate, resident of Uncasville, CT, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

In this connection, I interviewed Richard Harteis, President of the William Meredith Foundation, writer and close friend of the great American poet. Meredith, who passed away in 2007, is a citizen of Bulgaria and of the City of Smolyan.
"Poets - 'The Biblical “Birds of the Air That Neither Sow Nor Reap Nor Store Away in Barns': Richard Harteis tells about the honorary Bulgarian citizen William Meredith and poetry in the USA".

Interview by Valentin Krustev with Richard Harteis with Three poems by Gray Jacobik translated into Bulgarian by Valentin Krustev

Andrew Oerke celebration at Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. On September 28th at the Marsh Hall Rotunda, the foundation sponsored a poetry reading and video presentation of the 2015 William Meredith Award to Andrew Oerk. Link to video of the program is forthcoming. Pictured below are some of the participants of the event from left to right:

Prof. Graeme P. Berlyn, PhD, Editor: Journal of Sustainable Forestry; Prof.Anitra Thornhaug (with book); Dr. Dana Raphael, Director and founder Human Lactation Foundation; Helene Harvey of Houston Medical Facility; Dr. Helen Mills Poulos, Research Associate, Wesleyan University; Mimi Sommer, writer & photographer. Back row:, Dr. Ryan C. Jackson, Dean, Caribbean Medical School; Dr. Mary Berlyn, Research Scientist Emeritus, Yale Dept. of Biology; Dr. John Hall, Yale Divinity School; Johnes Ruta, Vice President of the William Meredith Foundation; and Richard Harteis, President, (with book).

Sacramento, CA – David Lincoln Fisher, 72, internationally known, award-winning poet, died Feb. 2, 2015.

Fisher was a graduate of Rolesville, NC, high school and graduated summa cum laude from Duke University on an Angier B. Duke scholarship. He later completed course work for a doctorate at Yale University on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. He had further studies at the University of Tubingen and the Sorbonne.

Fisher taught college courses in English and poetry in the San Francisco Bay area for many years. He published several books of his poetry and received two National Foundation for the Arts fellowships. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for “The Book of Madness” and won the first annual Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams award for the best book of poetry in America (1978) for his book “Teachings”.

Fisher’s last work, “I Hear Always the Dogs on the Hospital Roof”, a collection of his poetry, was published in 2012 as the first William Meredith Award for Poetry.

He is survived by his brother Hugh Fisher (Serena Parks Fisher) of Winter Springs, FL and his niece Elizabeth Fisher Goad (Dean Goad) of Okinawa, Japan. He was predeceased by his father the Rev. Ben C. Fisher and mother Sara Gehman Fisher.

Memorial gifts may be made to the William Meredith Foundation, 337 Kitemaug Road, Uncasville, CT 06382.

STOIMEN REVISITED

A decade ago, the Lyman Allyn Museum welcomed the master painter, Stoimen Stoilov from Bulgaria for an extraordinary one man show. Stoimen created heroic canvases assembled in the museum itself which have not been available to the public since that remarkable show. On June 7th, the Provenance Center is pleased to offer a brief second look at these works, in preparation for a major retrospective to take place at the Slater Museum next June, 2015.

In the New London Day review of that Lyman Allyn Show, NEW WORKS FROM EUROPE COMBINE A MASTER’S TOUCH WITH AN ARRESTING VISION, Day critic, Rick Koster writes that the works, “display a paradoxically futuristic interpretation of the mysticism and mythology appropriate to both eastern and western Europe. Fasten your seatbelt, then, and join the ghosts of other travelers who’ve apparently been inside his brain a while: Hieronymous Bosch, Albrecht Dürer, Pan and his eclectic and recurring entourage of Greco-Roman deities and mythmakers, Leonardo DaVinci and maybe the painter/patricide Richard Dadd.”

In addition to the massive murals, STOIMEN REVISITED features etchings from ECHOES, the art folio book “illustrating” the poetry of William Meredith. This limited edition masterwork can be found in special collections libraries at Yale, Princeton, the New York Public Library, and Connecticut College among others, but can now be viewed easily, without a library card or special permission.

In Stoimen’s native Bulgaria, when winter seems finally over and to greet the spring, people offer each other a martenitsa, small amulets made of red and white yarn that one must tie to a tree for luck when they see the first bird of spring. And throughout the summer, birds’ nests across the country have these red and white threads woven into them. In this spirit of luck and affection, the William Meredith Foundation is pleased to offer this small jewel of an exhibition to welcome summer and all the joys it portends. Come raise a glass with us at the opening reception June 7th 7-9:00.

We are pleased to announce the publication of CONGREGATION as the 2014 William Meredith Award for Poetry given to US Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey. Individual copies can be purchased through Poets-Choice. Com at the Pay Pal donate button for $12.95 (with free shipping.)

CONGREGATION will soon be available on Amazon at the following link:
http://www.amazon.com/Congregation-Poems-By-Natasha-Trethewey/dp/1928755240/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399140539&sr=8-1&keywords=congregation%2C+Poems+by+Natasha+Trethewey

Book Store DISCOUNTS for bulk sales available by contacting:

MarathonFilm@gmail.com or telelphone 860-961-5138

Richard Harteis

FROM THE FOREWORD of CONGREGATION:

The William Meredith Foundation is honored to present the 2014 award for poetry to Natasha Trethewey. Beyond the fact that both poets served at the Library of Congress, the award recognizes a shared aesthetic and level of achievement. When Meredith was writing poems, his goal was that they be "useful," that they speak to audiences "In the heart's duress, on the heart's behalf." For Meredith, poetry is essentially an act of communication in the language of the human tribe, not an exercise in intellectual posturing or exhibitionism. His work is accessible and deceptively simple. He speaks to us with a moral authority and finally, like Trethewey, feels impelled "to offer somebody/uncomprehending, impudent thanks." Congregation is such a document, a "love letter to the Gulf Coast, a praise song, a dirge, invocation and benediction, a requiem for the Gulf Coast." Here are the people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Katrina, speaking to her with the folk wisdom, and faith, of the survivor. "Without faith, we is victims," one church marquee proclaims, and another, with a different kind of eloquence, "God is not/ the author of fear." A pilgrim, she returns to the Gulf Coast and her people, but finds home to be "but a cradle of the past." She cannot enter the church service, "standing at the vestibule - neither in, nor out," and can only watch, her face against the glass, attempting to face the things that confront her. By the end of the cycle, however, she has earned the Whitmanesque final line of the poems, "native daughter: I am the Gulf Coast."

We are pleased to announce the publication of CONGREGATION as the 2014 William Meredith Award for Poetry given to US Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey. Individual copies can be purchased through this
Poets-Choice.com PayPal Order button for $12.95

Book Store DISCOUNTS for bulk sales are available by contacting:

MarathonFilm@gmail.com or telelphone 860-961-5138

The poems of Natasha Trethewey’s Congregation are the result of Hurricane Katrina and the earlier hurricane, Camille, and their terrible impacts on those who live in the hard-hit communities along the Gulf Coast, including her family. They are love letters, praise songs, dirges, invocations, and benedictions; they are also homages to the everyday people who “gather our / food, and those who grow it clean it, cook it / who bring it to our tables.” The opening poem, “Invocation,” asks for the grace needed to tell their story and to thank God for the ability to remember them.

Bless the travellers who gather
our food, and those who grow it, clean it,
who bring it to our tables. Bless the laborers
whose faces we do not see – like the girl
my grandmother was, walking the rails home:

bless us that we remember.

Grace Cavalieri,
Washington Independent Review of Books:
"When we read these poems we know what Trethewey beliieves — we see the blood in her veins. Next, we know how principled poetry can emerge from a darker world; and then, we see, when all around us crumbles, the complexity of the human spirit –and consequences of suffering that can be redeemed. When the poet liberates herself, she liberates others; and that is why we call writing a moral life. Trethewey reflects reality with lyrical force. She’s not afraid to live; she’s not afraid to carry the freight of knowledge; she creates carefully from the boundaries of loss and turns it to poetry. Out of cultural disorder comes Congregation, a celebration, so get your God on. Poetry is holy work."

Congregation is the recipient of the 2014 Award for Poetry by The William Meredith Foundation.

Natasha Trethewey is the author of Thrall (2012), Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin), Bellocq’s Ophelia (Graywolf, 2002), and Domestic Work (Graywolf, 2000). She is also the author of Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (University of Georgia Press). She has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize and has had fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012, she was appointed the State Poet Laureate of Mississippi and in 2013, Poet Laureate of the U.S. Throughout 2013, she joined Jeffrey Brown in a series of on-location broadcast reports for the PBS News Hour exploring issues that matter to Americans through the framework of poetry. She is presently the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University.

Congregation
by Natasha Trethewey

Foreword by
Richard Harteis

17 pp. 5 x 7-3/4

Perfectbound, $12.95

ISBN: 978-1-928755-24-1

co-published with
The William Meredith Foundation
www.WilliamMeredithFoundation.org

Free Shipping

I am back from travels in France and Bulgaria along with our treasurer, Nancy Frankel and feel feel a bit little like a student returning to school after vacation being asked to write an essay of "what I did last summer." But it's been a while since I've written, friends have been curious, and there is a lot to report.

It was a great though sometimes demanding trip, just shy of a month of travel. In Paris, we stayed with the translator of CROSSING OVER, the bi-lingual book of William's poetry published this year with illustrations by Sooky Maniquant, Marc Albert.

(http://williammeredithfoundation.org/foundation-publications.htm)

Marc was a very generous host and arranged for a launching of the book and an exhibition of Sooky's work he and Nancy mounted at a fine bookstore, La Lucarne. The internet journal they publish printed a French translation of my poem on the shootings at Newtown, Ct. and the reading was very well received. A lovely artist we met through him, Ivan Sigg created a beautiful award certificate for our next engagement. Living with Marc was a bit like living in a Buddhist monastery since every day we were called to the practice of Nicheren Buddhism (Nam myo ho renge ko) where we met an extraordinary group of Parisian mailto:jb593@georgetown.eduarisianacolytes from different professions and backgrounds. What an experience, what nice and gentle folk.

During a visit to the US embassy, we left books with our Cultural Attache in Paris and got the lay of the land from her point of view. And we continued work on the final version of GREEN-WINGED HORSE, this year's William Meredith Award for Poetry recipient, Lyubomir Levchev. Unfortunately, some very clever pick pockets got hold of my wallet and more or less wiped me out. Fortunately, my travel companion was able to bail me out. Lesson: Don't assume the hip chain wallet you carry is safe and always travel with your treasurer. I did my best, and succeeded fairly well not to let it spoil the trip with a fair amount of chanting with our host and his friends.

On May 22nd we flew to Bulgaria and presented GREEN-WINGED HORSE book under the auspices of the American University of Bulgaria and hospitality of President Easton. GREEN-WINGED HORSE will be available soon through Little Red Tree press and is sponsored in part by the Griffis Art Center. This book has been beautifully translated by our friend Valentin Krustev who accompanied us on our travels in Bulgaria. It was great to see old friends from my Fulbright days in Blagoevgrad, one of whom, Lucien Liko had prepared a model for a portrait bust of William to be created in the near future for presentation. In Sofia on the 24, the national holiday for Saints Cyril and Methodius we presented the formal award to Lyubomir at the at a William Merdith celebration given by the Cyril and Methodius Foundation. Among the friends and dignitaries were Nikolay Petev (head of the Union of Bulgarian Writers) and recently-elected member of parliament and his wife Theodora, former officials of the foundation and a group of young poets who all read a poem in honor of Lyubomir and William. During the visit we met with representatives of the Mayor of Vratsa to outline a William Meredith Festival in the Arts they wish to hold in the future. And the Sunday before we left, we gave an interview to the national radio program, "The Hour of Words."

Back in Washington, we were able to meet with the Bulgarian Ambassador Elena Poptodorova and schedule a fall event at the embassy which we plan to hold co-incidentally with the annual foundation board meeting. We were also able to attend my 45th class reunion at Georgetown and as a result will meet with the Special Collections librarian there this week where we will present recent publications and see how we may continue William's legacy at the Lauinger Library. At the LGBTQ Resource Center reception during the reunion we presented a copy of the film MARATHON and envision a screening and discussion of the film in the future.

I will be in Connecticut mid-June through August when I return to Bulgaria for a writer's conference sponsored by the Union of Bulgarian Writers and some time at their guest house in Varna. We hope to have a number of events in New London to celebrate this year and last year's Meredith Award for Poetry and entertain the prospect of visitors to Uncasville. Ah summer, a cumin in, and I am very happy to be returning home. As William says in a poem,

Summer is the change
we yearn the globe toward

And ourselves, perhaps, before "the planet tilts and cools." Wishing everyone the easier happiness of summer and its pleasures.

Richard

Join the salon for a glass of wine, fine art, and poetic camaraderie at The Courtyard Gallery: Mystic's Hidden Treasure. The reading is free and open to the public, with sales of pastries to benefit future publications and readings in the Hidden Treasure Poetry Series.

"On March 2nd Warehouse Winery's No. 9 Red was formally awarded Minnesota's "Best Red" at the Minnesota Food and Wine Experience.

All profits from the sale of Meredith Red will help support the charitable and artistic projects of the William Meredith Foundation and Center for the Arts."
_________________________________________

September 16th 4:00-6:00

Courtyard Art Gallery
12 Water St.
Mystic, CT. 06355
(860) 536-5059

www.courtyardgallerymystic.com

CROSSING

Between forest and field, a threshold
like stepping from a cathedral into the street-
the quality of air alters, an eclipse lifts,
boundlessness opens, earth itself retextured
into weeds where woods once were.

Even [planes of motions shift from vertical
navigation of horizontal quiescence:
there's a standing invitation to lie back
as sky's unpredictable theater proceeds.

Suspended in this ephemeral moment
after leaving a forest, before entering
a field, the nature of reality is revealed.

Visit his website for more poetry:
http://www.drunkenboat.com/

Mar de lagrimas (Sea of Tears)

Osvoldo Yero

Each is cast in porcelain, fired, glazed a shade
of blue or greenish-blue, some left hands,
but mostly right, and each is the hand
of a Cuban artist. Some left during
the great flight of the mid-Sixties
and the lesser flights of the Seventies
and Eighties. And some, forced to work
in mines and canefields, stayed in their
homeland. The hands hang a dozen deep,
a great wave on a long wall, each turned
slightly, thumb up, palm exposed.
From the side we see fingernails,
knuckles, knotted ridges of arteries,
scars of accidents and toil. Inert and cold,
signaling from stony depths, disembodied
yet over-arching, as if each lived more
in the sky than in the flesh, more
in the sea than on the shore; the hand
of its people, the sky and sea that holds Cuba.
Each man or woman kept a hand in plaster
long enough to form a mold, each mold
received the poured clay, the glaze, the fire,
filling the void of absence with existence--

I lived through sorrowful times and made art
with this hand. Nothing can stop
a hand from finding whatever it needs.
Nothing can stop the maker.

Michael Linnard
Little Red Tree Publishing, LLC
635 Ocean Avenue,
New London, CT 06320

Tel: 860 444 0082
Fax:860 440 2569

Email: michael.linnard@littleredtree.com

Website: www.littleredtree.com

April 5, Thursday:

Screening of MARATHON at Lynn University as an outreach event for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival: http://palmbeachpoetryfestival.org/news/#Marathon

April 22, Sunday:

Poetry reading from CROSSING OVER in celebration of William Merediths poetry and the foundation established to continue his legacy at RJ Julia Bookstore in Madison, CT. at 2:30.
Click here for Directions.

April 25, Wednesday:

Screening of MARATHON at the Groton Public Library April 25th.

Please join us on April 25 at 7:00 p.m., as we celebrate National Poetry Month with Marathon, a film with local connections featuring familiar settings and faces. Richard Harteis, the filmmaker and one of the central characters, will be present to introduce the film and answer your questions.

Marathon explores the relationship between Richard Harteis and William Meredith, a former Poet Laureate and winner of every major American award for poetry including the 1988 Pulitzer Prize. In the 17th year of their friendship, William sustained a debilitating stroke. Richard chose to stand by his partner, fighting for the right to care for him, despite the inevitable restrictions on his own life, and against the wishes of William's family. Though the path they chose is not an easy one, their love and compassion see them through days of illness, therapy, and healing. The power to overcome illness with dignity becomes a lesson in physical and spiritual endurance.

The film was an official selection in several festivals and the winner of the several awards at the New York International Film Festival.

Contact:
Betty Anne Reiter
Director
Groton Public Library
52 Newtown Road
Groton, CT 06340

860.441.6750
breiter@town.groton.ct.us

April 29, Sunday:

Publication of the first William Meredith Award for Poetry: I HEAR ALWAYS THE DOGS ON THE HOSPITAL ROOF, New and Collected Poems by David Fisher. Launching will take place at the Courtyard Gallery in Mystic on April 29th.

All net profits from the sale of Poetic Blend, William Meredith Red support the charitable and artistic projects of the William Meredith Foundation and Center for the Arts. On March 2nd Warehouse Winery’s No. 9 Red was formally awarded Minnesota’s " Best Red at the Minnesota Food and Wine Experience. This award-winning wine is being released under the name "Poetic Blend, Meredith Red." All net profits from the sale of Meredith Red will help support the charitable and artistic projects of the William Meredith Foundation and Center for the Arts.

Rich, ripe, full-bodied red wine; deep, dark berry flavors; bold statement; oak nuance; vanilla tones; long finish, no filtration.

CABERNET SAUVIGNON 45%
PETITE SIRAH 30%
FRONTENAC 20%
CABERNET FRANC 5%

Now available on-line!

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To order Poetic Blend: William Meredith Red -- click here or please visit:

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As for news, I am happy to say announce that our film MARATHON has been awarded a special jury prize for "Excellence in Filmaking - Narrative Feature" at the Anthem Film Festival final banquet July 16th at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas. The Anthem Festival is part of Freedom Fest, a gathering of 3,000 Libertarians from all walks of life to discuss business, politics and the arts. Films demonstrating self reliance and personal courage were selected, certainly qualities William demonstrated his entire lifetime, but especially with the challenges of ageing. We were able to present his poetry at the convention center book store, and describe the foundations work at various functions and to friends such as my old college roomate, Brian Greenspun who publishes the Las Vegas Sun. Speakers included Steve Forbes, Juan Williams, Senator Paul, and Doug Casey among others. Dr. Joseph Stauffer kindly sponsored travel to conference and as well as Mr. and Mrs. John Brennan.

Another festival, The Gig Harbor Film Festival has invited us to Washington state this October 14-16th, and my hometown, York Pa. has invited us to the Prometheus Film Festival on August 19th, the day afer my 65th (gulp!) birthday. I will be in York with friends and family to celebrate the film and commiserate on the anniversary. And just before the York festival, we have been accepted as an official selection in the Columbia Gorge Film Festival in Vancouver, Washington. Our great hope is to schedule more theatrical releases of MARATHON in venues such at the University of Ohio where it showed recently as well as the Downtown Bocca Festival this past spring.

Upcoming festivals include:

The Columbia Gorge Film Festival, takes place in Vancover, WA August 10-14, 2011.

The Prometheus Festival, York, PA August 19-21, 2011.

The Gig Harbor Festival,Washington State, October 13-16, 2011.

Letter from the President

Dear Friends,

Hello again, here at Riverrun where summer is a rollin' in. The stand of Japanese maples we planted last year has done well despite the deer's appetite for the small delicious red leaves. The lawn mower has been fixed and "the field tilting always toward day" has been given a haircut. William's longtime friend, John Hracyk stopped by this week to present us with the gift of a Chinese sculpture from his collection, a green ceramic dog to guard against evil spirts we have named Lee Chen. I've changed the O-rings in the leaky faucet and replaced the window the storms blew in this winter. Two long-haired princes come from New York soon to put a stainless steel liner in the chimney. Always something with a house.... But we are a state landmark now, and we need to attend to the tired beauty of the place as best as possible. My great hope is that one day the foundation will take ownership of the house and continue its spirit in perpetuity.

Artists' Reception : Saturday, October 29, 2011, 2:00 to 4:00 PM

The New Haven Free Public Library Gallery
133 Elm Street (Lower Level) New Haven, CT 06510

Guest Curator: Poet Richard Harteis
Sponsored by the William Meredith Foundation

Deborah Curtis: "Pathway to the Water - Harkness" 14” x 18” Pastel on Pastel board

The William Meredith Foundation and the Azoth Gallery present a two-person exhibit of artworks by Connecticut artist Deborah Curtis and French artist Sooky Maniquant at the New Haven Public Library Gallery.

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Deborah Curtis
Deborah Curtis has combined her interests in science, technology and the visual arts. She graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science in Fine Arts through a joint program at The Art Institute of Boston. She was employed at Retina Associates in Boston for more than eight years as an ophthalmic photographer and associate media manager. "Being employed in medical and defense media/photography has helped me create my fine art and photographs. My Professional Medical Photography skills delegate how I produce “art” to market."

"My palette can be organic, using limited two/three primary/complimentary color choices," writes Deborah. "I also explore the primary hues and only blend its compliment for shadows and rendering edges giving the art piece a dreamy like effect not normally found in reality. In either depiction, I like to simplify my art to its baseline and work outward.

Deborah Curtis: "Around the Misty Bend - Harkness" 32" x 42" oil on linen canvas

"I love using technology to capture what I find unusual and beautiful, which expedites the exploratory process for my creative statements. I enjoy nature as an infinite timeless array of light reflected upon mass, air and liquid igniting emotion through ones mind, body and spirit. Art to me is the sum expression of passion combining all these things in harmony, a marriage between the study of life and the media of technology. Most of her current works are in series.

Since the 1980s, Deborah has exhibited her art work in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. She has painted en plein air, and has often attracted media attention while rendering exteriors of Connecticut resorts, inns and sunsets along the Connecticut and Rhode Island shorelines. Deborah has taught a myriad of workshops: abstract, figures, animal portraits in pastels and mixed media collage in New London at Granite Street Gallery, Studio 33, and art classes in Norwich at Art Works, which featured a retrospective of her works in 2010. In 2009, she had a solo show of 18 portraits of women. She also teaches in private homes/studios and is commissioned for photography and art work.

Deborah Curtis: “Contiguous Wave” – Harkness 11” x 14” Oil on linen canvas

Commentary by Richard Harteis:

In a remarkable series of dramatic monologs entitled HAZARD THE PAINTER, the poet William Meredith traces the life of his "imaginary playmate," an artist saddled with all the accouterments of middle class life in America: house, car, wife, in-laws, children, and cat. In one poem, Hazard notes,

"The cat is taking notes against
his own household. He watches.
Hazard would like once to see
things with the cat’s eyes, flat.

It seems to me in Deborah Curtis’ paintings that she has mastered the vision of Hazard’s cat. Like the canvases of Milton Avery, they are stripped of all unnecessary detail, landscapes reduced their purest essence, Platonic images if you wish, of ocean-ness, of what it really means to walk the beach alone on a summer’s day. While the work is clearly representational, it focuses on color relations and is not overly concerned with creating the illusion of depth as is most conventional painting. Like Avery or Matisse, such stripping away takes courage for one living in what is perhaps the country’s foremost bastion of landscape painters. The Lyme tradition runs deep as a deer tick after gardening in southeastern Connecticut. If you want photo realism or perfect impressionist landscapes, this is the place to shop. Some may find her work radical for being too abstract; some lovers of Abstract Expressionism may find it too representational. What is clear is that Curtis has developed her own unique voice which is always the mark of a serious poet or artist. In another HAZARD poem, the painter spends an afternoon skydiving and reflects:

The colors of autumn
are becoming audible through the haze.
It does not matter that the great masters
could see this without flight, while
dull Hazard must be taken up and dropped.
He see it.

Curtis sees it too, and "hears" color like a master which is why her work sings to us so beautifully.

For a painter, I would image water would be one of the most difficult subjects to capture, even more than light, or perhaps because of it. Light captured in a drop of water, or an ice crystal, or a breaking wave is as evanescent as a summer’s breeze. And natural light is central to her painting, which is why Ms. Curtis works so often en plein air. This harmony of light and color, particularly as it applies to water and seascape marks her as one of the regions finest new talents whose work we celebrate. If only Hazard and William were here today to enjoy it with us.

Sooky Maniquant

Sooky Maniquant was born in Vietnam in 1934 and brought up in the South Pacific. She studied in Paris, and traveled through the world, using every occasion to deepen her knowledge of Océanian, European, African, Asiatic, and most particularly of Japanese civilizations. Very early, she makes the choice to live, more often as not, on the Luberon, her “sacred mountain”, where she feels nearer to the “vivid forces” of Nature.

Maniquant first met William Meredith in Paris and Avignon when William was invited to participate in the Avignon festival. In the piece "After William Meredith," the Meredith poems are presented in both his original English and a French translation, juxtaposing the text with images rendered by Sooky Maniquant. "After William Meredith" places artwork and poems side by side, allowing the viewer to experience Meredith's work from two different perspectives: Meredith's verses and Maniquant's striking visual interpretations:

In 2002: Exposition "round in water, magic Circles" were variations on 20 poems of William Meredith and Richard Harteis at the European Center of Poetry of Avignon. In 2006 at the Lyman Allyn Museum in New London CT : "AFTER WILLIAM MEREDITH" Spiral Forces were graphic connivances of Sooky Maniquant on poems by W.Meredith and R.Harteis.

"It is the universe seized in its innermost transformation which is revealed, but remains surprising, by static as these chalk cliffs, boiling under the midday sun, terrorized by the heat and silence, dully crackling on the limit of exploding, a stilled furnace overflowing onto the whole space of canvas in a thick wave…. World in distress, but held back by the artist’s hand on the brim of emptiness…Solidified by the appearance, sealed into its vibrations, calm and taut as a mummified monster of a dormant weapon.” ~Paul-Louis Rossi

Sooky Maniquant "Air Heroes" 24" x 36" silkscreen print on paper

“Sooky Maniquant’s main preoccupation is to find in the mysterious existence of each one’s interior life (thing or being), and to translate this magic by her work, therefore suggesting, particularly for the works of 1963-1969, incomparable energy of volcanoes, beyond the “canvas” of the painted artwork. But reality complicates itself with the parallax “time-space” thus “perpetual movement” of which the artist will approach the research of expression more precisely in her collages from 1969. 1974, first tapestry: this material, treated in a very personal way, with its contours conceived in the mass of the work, enables her to pursue further in her researches: the continuity of the material, the heat and sphere of the surface, the vibrations of colours where the blacks and whites quiver, continue to express anxiety faced with the mystery of life. ~Henry Galy-Carles

Sooky Maniquant "In the Middle of a Long Friendship" 24" x 36" silkscreen print on paper

"But," Richard Harteis writes, "the mystery of life is also the one of death, of suffering, of horror, and for Sooky is an obsession. As from 1994 she often combines this with poetry, in opposition to wars. She puts together stucco, which proclaims her despair, in long kit form installations. In 2001, she returned to photography as a means of expression."

Sooky Maniquant "Tiger at the Water" 24" x 36" silkscreen print on paper

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E xhibition: October 14 - November 30, 2011
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CLICK HERE FOR DIRECTIONS

Gallery Hours:
Monday: 12 - 8 pm
Tuesday - Thursday: 10 am - 8 pm
Friday: 10 - 5 pm
Saturday: 10 am - 5 pm
Sunday: closed

For more information, please contact:
Gallery Curator: Johnes Ruta (203) 387-4933 azothgallery@comcast.net
http://azothgallery.com/gallery.htm

Dick Allen, one of America's leading poets, is preeminent among poets who encourage new sensibilities in poetry and who have brought to contemporary
poetry a large array of subjects other than the "self" and styles other than confessional free verse.

A masterful poet of wide reputation, Allen has published in the nation's premier journals includingPoetry, the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Hudson Review, New Republic, and New Criterion, as well as in scores of national anthologies. He has published seven poetry collections and won numerous awards including a Pushcart Prize, the Robert Frost prize, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Ingram Merrill Poetry Foundation, and six inclusions in The Best American Poetry annual volumes. Allen's most recent collection, Present Vanishing: Poems (Sarabande Books), received the 2009 Connecticut Book Award for Poetry.

An acclaimed public speaker and poetry reader, Allen has led poetry workshops
and seminars and served as a judge for various competitions and selection committees in Connecticut (including Poetry Out Loud State Finals in 2007 and a POL workshop for teachers in 2009) and at the national level.

His poems have been featured on Poetry Daily and Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac and in Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry, as well as recently on the national websites of Tricycle, where he was a guest poet writing on Zen Buddhism and poetry, and on the Smartish Pace poetry website.

Prior to his early retirement, Allen was Charles A. Dana Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Bridgeport (UB) where he taught
from 1968 to 2001. During his distinguished teaching career, he was highly
regarded and well-loved by students of all ages - particularly for his generosity of spirit and ability to mentor and nurture both beginning and accomplished poets. While at UB, he directed the University's Visiting Writers Series (open to the general public) which brought fifty of the nation's leading poets to Connecticut, and created and taught a wide range of courses, including international poetry and fiction, to a diverse student body.

THE SELFISHNESS OF THE POETRY READER

Sometimes I think I'm the only man in America
who reads poems
and who walks at night in the suburbs,
calling the moon names.
And I'm certain I'm the single man who owns
a house with bookshelves,
who drives to work without a CD player,
taking the long way, by the ocean breakers.
No one else, in all America,
quotes William Meredith verbatim,
cites Lowell over ham and eggs, and Levertov;
keeps Antiworlds and Ariel beside his bed.
Sometimes I think no other man alive
is changed by poetry, has fought
as utterly as I have over "Sunday Morning"
and vowed to love those difficult as Pound.
No one else has seen a luna moth
flutter over Iowa, or watched
a woman's hand lift rainbow trout from water,
and snow fall onto Minnesota farms.
This country wide, I'm the only man
who spends his money recklessly on thin
volumes unreviewed, enjoys
the long appraising look of check-out girls.
How could another in America know why
the laundry from a window laughs,
and how plums taste, and what an auto wreck
feels like--and craft?
I think that I'm the only man who speaks
of fur and limestone in one clotted breath;
for whom Anne Sexton plunged in Grimm; who can't
stop quoting haikus at some weekend guest.
The only man, in all America, who feeds
on something darker than his politics,
who writes in margins and who earmarks pages--
in all America, I am the only man.

-Dick Allen

Visit his website for more poetry:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rallen285/

THE REVENANT

Daisy stretches herself out like a mermaid on the kitchen floor.
She throws her head back and wails for no apparent reason.
It could be comic:
Her luxurious cocker ears fall in a chocolate cascade
like the Sun King's wig or a Dutch Burgomaster.
Why so inconsolable, Daisy?
The cookie jar is out of view;
There is no toy you can not reach,
no siren sounds that I can hear.
I have not packed my bags to leave you.
"They look at something we can't look at
yet," you said once of the ghosts of the house,
"averting their sad glance when we're clumsy with
one another."
Are you playing with us now dear ghost, tossing
an unseen ball to Daisy, trying to cheer us up a bit?
Does she see you through her clouded cataracts, the
way you come to me at the edge of sleep?

Do not tease us please, my dear; Come in full,
if apparition. You've left us lonely beyond measure,
turned Daisy to a banshee, and my poor brain again a tree
of frantic birds.

Richard Harteis

Rececnt and Past Film Festivals for Marathon

ACCEPTED
Delray Beach Film Festival
6th Annual from April 11 to April 17, 2011

ACCEPTED
International Film Festival Thailand 
2 Annual from July 13, 2010 to July 17, 2010

ACCEPTED
International Film Festival Egypt
4 Annual from April 04, 2010 to April 08, 2010

ACCEPTED
International Film Festival South Africa
4 Annual from November 01, 2010 to November 05, 2010

ACCEPTED
Swansea Bay Film Festival
5 Annual from May 08, 2010 to May 16, 2010

ACCEPTED
International Film Festival Ireland
3 Annual from September 04, 2010 to September 11, 2010

ACCEPTED
Treasure Coast International Film Festival
3 Annual from February 18, 2010 to February 21, 2010


WINNER - BRONZE PALM AWARD
Mexico International Film Festival
4 Annual from May 28, 2010 to May 30, 2010
Notify date: 01-Apr-2010


ACCEPTED
Beijing International Movie Festival
4 Annual from June 25, 2010 to July 06, 2010
Notify date: 21-Apr-2010