William
Meredith Foundation 2019 Annual Poetry Awards
- at the Embassy of Bulgaria, Washington DC September
14, 2019. Richard Harteis, host, President of
WMF; Tihomir Stoytchev, Ambassador to US. Awards:
Barbara Goldberg, The William Meredith Foundation
Award for Translation; Tom Kirlin The Valentin
Krustev Award for Poetry.
Letter
from the President - May 2019
I am just back from several weeks in Bulgaria
traveling with Barbara Goldberg, winner of this
years Valentin Krustev Award in Translation.
It was a wonderful trip which began with several
days visiting Stoimen Stoilov in Varna on the
Black Sea. Here is a ceramic wall he created recently
for the university:
We moved on to Plovdiv for the Orpheus Festival
and met wonderful poets from Israel, Denmark,
Spain, North Macedonia, Rumania, and Serbia.
At times things got a bit political, though not
much. Here is a small reflection sent to lovely
Natasha.
For a Serbian Friend
Each of us
carries a target
on our back.
When they hit you,
Miloevic; me, Clinton.
How sweet it would be
To throw our jackets
Into the fire, and run
Like naked Children
On a green field,
In spring, hand in hand.
After Plovdiv, we drove to the
American University in Blagoevgrad where a special
event was produced for Barbaras new book.
On the way to Sofia, we visited
the Rila Monastery where part of Williams
cremains were given to the wind several years
ago.
Finally, we wound up in Sofia where the American
Embassy held a fine reception for TRANSFORMATION,
The award-winning book. I was particularly happy
to meet Valentins mother for the first time
and two of his sons. Honoring our dead colleague
this way was the highlight of the trip for me.
A very special thank you to Fred Van Aken whose
generosity largely made this travel possible.
Here is a link to an account of the embassy reception
which appeared in one of the largest Bulgarian
papers, TRUD.
Previous
Letter from the President, Richard Harteis
Dear Friends,
We continue to celebrate the Year of William
Meredith with award ceremonies, exhibitions,
and poetry readings. On February 6th, Bulgarian
Ambassador Tihomir Stoytchev was the distinguished
host to launch the 2019 William Meredith Award for
Poetry and the Valentin Krustev Award for Translation
during the sculpture exhibition, NANCY @ NINETY
which runs through March 17th at the American University
Art Museum.
On March 2, the curator
of the exhibition conducted a Q and A with Nancy
and fellow artists Sam Noto and Jacqui Concetta.
April 12,
Connecticut College will sponsor a symposium on
the life and work of William Meredith (details to
follow) during National Poetry Month.
FESTCSHRIFT
for William
This festschrift is presented as a gift to the Centennial
Celebration of William Meredith: His Legacy of Writing
at Connecticut College April 12, 2019 in gratitude
from the William Meredith Foundation and Poets
Choice Publishing.
May
9th-12th, 2019 - Bulgaria:
Barbara Goldberg and Richard Harteis will represent
the foundation in Bulgaria at the Plovdiv Poetry
Festival. Bulgaria assumes the presidency of the
European Union this year and Plovdiv will host numerous
arts programs.
Attached are some recent photos from the Museum
opening and Award Ceremony. This winter we were
pleased to host Scott Price in Uncasville for research
he completed on a Masters Thesis on the life
and work of William Meredith. It has been a busy
time, and William continues to be a strong current
in the flow of American culture. The foundation
is always grateful for contributions which help
support these programs (directly to The William
Meredith Foundation - 337 Kitemaug Road, Uncasville,
Ct. 06382 or through a website for contributions:
https://www.gofundme.com/WilliamMeredithCentennial
As a 501.c3 organization, contributions are tax
deductible.) For now, we send very best wishes for
a pleasant and productive spring.
Richard Harteis
Nancy
in front of Whimsy which was donated
to the Bulgarian Embassy. Many family members came
from far and wide to be there for Nancys show.
There was a tremendous turn out for both events.
The embassy kindly provided wine for the award reception
which also featured Bulgarian specialities for refreshments.
Award
presentation: Richard Harteis, Barbara Goldberg,
(winner of the Valentin Krustev Award for Translation)
Mrs. Lubka Stoytcheva, Nancy Frankel, Ambassador
Tihomir Stoytchev, and Tom Kirlin, winner of the
2019 William Meredith Award for Poetry.
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
Annapolis,
MD, January 09, 2018 --(PR.com)-- The William Meredith Foundation
is proud to present the 2018 Award in Poetry to James Beall, physicist,
poet, and professor at St. John's College in Annapolis. The award
has no application process, but comes to the author unsolicited
in the spirit of generosity that informed Williams interactions
with the world of poetry when he judged competitions and supported
new talent. A working association with Meredith is not a pre-requisite
for awardees, but in Jim Bealls case, their history as colleagues
makes this years award particularly fitting and adds a particular
glow to the serendipitous decision on the part of the board of
directors in choosing Beall. The Meredith Award is only one of
the artistic projects supported by the foundation to continue
the legacy of this great American spirit, and in this case, recognizes
these brothers in the art.
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. Johns 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
Bealls 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 blackbirds 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 Bealls praises over the years,
but one thinks of Josephine Jacobsens 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 Merediths birth and 11 years after his death in 2007.
Mysteries of Eastern
Europe
works by three European Masters
Stoimen Stoilov, Diana Stoilova, & Margarita Voinova
Exhibition: February 27 to April 12, 2018 10AM - 8PM daily
Stoimen Stoilov - "Woman and Bird"
etching 31" x 24"
Stoimen Stoilov - "Power"
etching 32" x 26 1/2"
STOIMEN
STOILOV was born in Varna, Bulgaria in 1944 and is a graduate
of the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. He
leads his visual articulations with a Surrealist nature, and
works in his studio in Vienna.
For Stoimen,
line is a justified dominating force, and his visions are rich
with symbolism and indigenous history. His poetic visions encourage
viewers to imagine mythic traditions and lore. He spent time
living among the Aborigines in Australia, one of the many cultural
influences in his work. His art has also been influenced by
the poetry of friends like Lyubomir Levchev (b. 1935) Poet Laureate
of Bulgaria, William Meredith (1919-2007) Poet Laureate of the
United States 1978-1980, and the poet Richard Harteis (b.1946).
In 1991,
Stoimen Stoilov was awarded Gottfried Von Herder Prize by The
University of Vienna. His work resides in Museum of Graphic
Arts Albertine, Vienna; the National Museums of Art in Sofia,
Columbia, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland; the Pushkin Museum,
Moscow; the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris; Yale University;
the NY Public Library, and the U.S. Library of Congress, Washington.
His most recent shows were a large 2015 retrospective, including
two 8 foot wide murals at the Slater Museum in Norwich, and
exhibitions at UCONN Avery Point, Groton, CT; New Haven, CT;
and Westerly, RI.
Stoimen
Stoilov is a first-class engraver for in his recent work he
has attained a maturity of touch, an expressivity of line, and
a dynamism of the imaginaire which transcends not only the frontiers
of reality, but also those of forms. The work of Stoilov is
marked by a new vision which scrutinizes the unequalled detail,
the most obscure recesses of the body of the being, of the animal,
of nature and environment. The minutae of details reveal, as
under an X-ray, the articulations and body language of all our
living bodies. If at times human beings and things appear in
their skeletal elements, they do not for that reason fail to
acquire a lightness which makes them float in space, a space
overflowing the geometric forms of a picture, a diptych or triptych,
to let themselves go freely in movement, in the conquest of
new imaginary landscapes.
Margarita
Voinova - "Dream Garden"
oil on board, 20" x 12"
Margarita
Voinova - "Fairy Tale of Old"
oil on board, 20" x 12"
MARGARITA
VOINOVA, younger sister of Stoimen Stoilov, was born in Varna,
Bulgaria, where she lives and works. Her hand woven tapestries
decorate many hotels, banks, restaurants and cultural clubs
in Bulgaria and abroad. Her paintings and watercolors are in
the possession of numerous galleries, museums, and private collections
in Germany, France, Norway, Italy, Finland, USA, Australia and
Lebanon. She finds in her works primary archaic signs, created
in a pristine naive world bound to the mythology of Earth and
Air. For the artist these signs, symbolizing birds, fish and
human beings embody the primary idea of the Universe and the
understanding among the formations of this world. These symbols
are tranquil, intense, simple, tangible and understandable by
all people. The artist finds these signs in the traditions of
the world civilizations and in her own being. Her contact with
the Australian aborigines and their art has been a unique experience.
The harmony of colour and shape is striking, surprising, and
after all, convincing: through her works, the artist starts
a journey back to ancient civilizations, to a culture, shared
by all people.
Diana Stoilova - "Fish"
oil on board, 18"h x 24"w
Diana Stoilova - "Window"
oil on board, 24"h x 18"h
DIANA STOILOVA,
daughter of Stoimen Stoilov, lives and works in Vienna, Austria.
She was among a small group of artists first shown at UCONN's
Alexey Von Schlippe Gallery at Avery Point in Groton, CT in
2000, when this exhibition was visited by the Vice President
of Bulgaria.
In 1994,
she studied at the Academy of the Beaux Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria,
where she attended a Master Class for Pressure Graphics. In
1997, she studied at the Applied Arts in Vienna. Works of the
artist are in the collections of the Graphics Museum Carpenter,
Bath Steben, Germany, the Dialogue Foundation, Pris, France,
the Griffis Art Center, New London, CT, and in other private
collections.
**********************************************************************************
Exhibition: February 27 to April 12, 2018
Katherine Blossom, Arts Director
Connecticut Hospice
Richard Harteis, President of the William Meredith
Foundation,
represnetative of the Stoilov's artwork in the United States.
Our special
event at the
Bulgarian Embassy
Washington, D.C.
September 16, 2017
celebrating a number of recently published poets by
Poets Choice Publishing (poets-choice.com)
including the 2017 awardee of The William Meredith Award for Poetry
given
to Florida Poet Laureate, Peter Meinke.
The event was free and open to the public.
Videos
by Johnes Ruta, WMF Board Member.
Setsuko
Ono and the Washington Sculpture Group
A 30 minute film covering the life of our friend Setsuko Ono was
aired by Nippon Television in Japan on August 3rd, 2016.
This video
was taken by Nippon Television at WSG Sculpture Salon in June
2016:
Bulgaria TV News coverage of scattering of William
Meredith's ashes. September, 2016.
2017
Letter from the President
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 Williams 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 Williams 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:
My training
as a Roman Catholic, however, proscribed such a division of a
persons 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, Id
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 ones cremains could not be partitioned but must
lie together in consecrated ground despite Williams 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.
It is with
great sadness that we note the death of recently-appointed Board
member, Valentin Krustev who died suddenly of a heart
attack on June 3, 2016, at his home in Sofia, Bulgaria. This
gentle spirit and brilliant intellect was friend, collaborator
and cicerone to William and me for decades. He was an essential
bridge between the foundation and Bulgaria and is irreplaceable.
Here is my tribute to this dear friend and artist.
The Translator
To Valentin
No word
is too long until the word
comes that your are gone, and gone
now another world, another life
you brought me through translation.
Your art
was like a window pane
Through which a reader met a poet
And his poem, with never a smudge
Of your own ego on the clear glass.
But it wasnt
only the meaning,
it was the thing itself you showed me:
It was never a question of right or
Wrong: This simply is how we raise
our children, how we eat our soup.
A brash
American overly sure of
Himself and his culture, learned a bit
The subtlety of silence, the elegance
Produced by history, the need and skill
to work and live in the hive at peace.
Quiet, master
diplomat, smile on me again:
Translate me at the end of my own days.
The faults will be obvious enough.
I rely on
your constant goodness, your talent
to intuit what I may have done well and speak
on my behalf brother, even if, at times, you must
cloud the pane between us and the stars.
With Love from Richard
Valentin Krustev and William Meredith at Svetlana's
beach in Waterford
Our special
event at the
Bulgarian Embassy
Washington, D.C.
September 16, 2017
celebrating a number of recently published poets by
Poets Choice Publishing (poets-choice.com)
including the 2017 awardee of The William Meredith Award for Poetry
given
to Florida Poet Laureate, Peter Meinke.
The event was free and open to the public.
Videos
by Johnes Ruta, WMF Board Member.
PROGRAM FOR SEPTEMBER 16, 2017 6:00 -8:00 PM
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)
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)
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)
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-MILLERS 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
Setsuko
Ono and the Washington Sculpture Group
A 30 minute film covering the life of our friend Setsuko Ono was
aired by Nippon Television in Japan on August 3rd, 2016.
This video
was taken by Nippon Television at WSG Sculpture Salon in June
2016:
Bulgaria TV News coverage of scattering of William
Meredith's ashes. September, 2016.
2017
Letter from the President
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 Williams 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 Williams 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:
My training
as a Roman Catholic, however, proscribed such a division of a
persons 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, Id
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 ones cremains could not be partitioned but must
lie together in consecrated ground despite Williams 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.
In the
legend of Daphne, while fleeing from Apollo's passionate pursuit,
the river nymph cries out to her father, Peneus, the river god,
to save her, and he transforms her into a laurel tree.
"Daphne" will be re-enacted in an original short dance
and musical presentation on Aug. 20 at Riverrun, the late William
Meredith's beautiful home on the Thames River in Uncasville and
the perfect setting to bring Ovid's Greek myth to life.
Richard Harteis, president of the William Meredith Foundation
and Meredith's longtime partner, conceived the performance along
with Brett Raphael, founder and artistic director of the Connecticut
Ballet and creator of The New London Dance Initiative that is
aimed at increasing dance exposure and training for the city's
youth.
THE
2014 WILLIAM MEREDITH AWARD FOR POETRY PRESENTED TO POET
NATASHA TRETHEWEY
THE
2013 WILLIAM MEREDITH AWARD FOR POETRY PRESENTED TO POET
LYUBOMIR LEVCHEV
GREEN-WINGED
HORSE
new and selected poems by
Lyubomir Levchev
($24.95 (7" X 10") Little Red Tree; 254 pages,
with 41 color and black & white paintings,
illustrations and photos)
Art Work by Stoimen Stoilov
Translations from Bulgarian by Valentin Krustev
Edited by Richard Harteis
"Lyubomir Levchev, the poems you write
are written by the sky
and the street and the old people who died 400 years ago and the
little kids
who will be born 400 years from now and they are poems of profound
joy
and swift sorrow " ~ William Saroyan
Green-Winged Horse features a great number of
new poems, uniquely translated
by Valentin Krustev, one of Williams oldest friends who
was one of the
very first translators assigned to William when he first began
attending Peace the Hope of the Planet, the writers' conferences
sponsored
by the Union of Bulgarian Writers over the decades..
Here once again, history and talent come together in friendly
synchronicity.
THE
2012 WILLIAM MEREDITH AWARD FOR POETRY PRESENTED TO POET
DAVID FISHER
David Fisher
Sacramento, CA - David Lincoln Fisher, 72, award winning poet,
died Feb. 2, 2015.
Fisher graduated summa cum laude from Duke University on an
Angier B. Duke scholarship and 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.
Born March 16, 1942, Fisher taught college courses in poetry
in the California 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
by the William Meredith Foundation.
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".
AN
AUTUMN AFTERNOON OF POETRY
BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS AND READINGS
THE
WRITERS' CENTER
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
NOVEMBER 22, 2015
William
Meredith Foundation Board
Nancy Frankel (treasurer), Richard Harteis (President), Grace
Cavalieri, Johnes Ruta.
Elisavietta
Ritchie
Tom
Kirlin
Grace
Cavalieri
Artist
Katia Jirankova
Johnes
Ruta
Richard
Harteis
Nancy
Frankel and sculpture
Sunil Freeman of the Bethesda Writers' Center
introduces Richard Harteis, President of the William Meredith
Foundation for a Poetry and book reading. November 22, 2015.
Readings: Tim Kirlin; Grace Cavalieri; Elisavietta Ritchie; Johnes
Ruta (no video);
Richard Harteis; Daniel Levanti, sung poetry; artist Katia Jarinkova;
sculptor Nancy Frankel.
Videos by: Johnes Ruta.
Introduction by William Meredith Foundation
President Richard Harteis
Rennie McQuilkin
CT Poet Laureate
Margaret Gibson
Grae Jacobik
Mary Posner
Ravi Shankar
Johnes Ruta
ANDREW
OERKE CELEBRATION AT YALE UNVIERSITY
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).
***********************************
THE
SLATER MUSEUM OF NORWICH
Bridge of Light
Artistic Illumination from the Balkans
GREAT ART AND A GREAT TIME WAS HAD BY ALL AT BRIDGE OF LIGHT:
ARTISTIC ILLUMINATION FROM THE BALKANS AT THE OPENING RECEPTION
ON JUNE 21ST.
State Representative, Kevin Ryan reads a letter
from Norwich Mayor Deberey Hinchey.
New London City Councilman, Michael Passero
admires Mark Patnode's painting.
Participating artists: Catherine Doocy, Christopher
Zhang and Debi Pendell.
Artist Dan Potter and participating artist,
Anne Seelbach
This exhibition
runs through August 28. Please note other foundation evens this
summer sponsored in part by the museum. Also, we will have a
poetry celebration of the 2015 William Meredith Award for Poetry
at the Courtyard Gallery in Mystic, July 26th at 4:00 and a
program featuring Poets Choice Publishing at Bank Square Books
in Mystic on September 20th at 1:00. More information on these
additional events coming soon. Hope you are having a great summer!
Richard
Harteis, President of the William Meredith Foundation introduces
Anitra Thornhaugh, PhD (Environmental Scientist, Yale) to receive
the William Meredith Award awarded posthumously for her late husband
ANDREW OERKE..
Left to right: Nancy Frankel, Treasurer of the William Meredith
Foundation; Richard Harteis; Anitra Thornhaug; CT State Representative
Kevin Ryan; Professor Graeme Berlyn, Yale School of Forestry and
Environmental Science.
Video by Johnes Ruta, VP the William Meredith Foundation.
The Slater Museum, Norwich CT, USA. Sunday, June 21, 2015.
Hugh
Fisher, David Fishers brother has sent us the following obituary.
We mourn Davids passing but are grateful that he gave us his
work and spirit for the first William Meredith Award for Poetry.
David
Fisher
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 Americas William Carlos
Williams award for the best book of poetry in America (1978) for
his book Teachings.
Fishers 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.
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 MASTERS 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 whove 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
Stoimens 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.
Please
click on the following image for a little slide show of opening
night:
CONGREGATION
- Poetry by US Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey
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.)
Book Store
DISCOUNTS for bulk sales available by contacting:
MarathonFilm@gmail.com
or telelphone 860-961-5138
Richard Harteis
p.s.
As noted in an earlier message, Ben Panciera has re-vitalized the
Connecticut College website which so beautifully organizes William’s
papers and scholarship. Please check it out and bookmark the following
link if you wish to take a look: collections.conncoll.edu/meredith
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."
A
NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT
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:
Congregation,
poems by Natasha Trethewey
Poet Laureate of the United States
The poems of Natasha
Tretheweys 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. Shes not afraid to live; shes 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),
Bellocqs 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
STUDIO
GALLERY: Book Launch, Reception, and
Sculpture Preview
Studio Gallery and the William Meredith Foundation cordially
invite you to the launching of Tom Kirlins debut book of
poetry
UNDER THE POTATO MOON
with art gallery presentation of
NancyFrankels sculpture. Please join us for light refreshments,
good
cheer, and friendship to help celebrate National Poetry Month.
www.WilliamMeredithFoundation.org
WHEN: Sun, April 21, 2014 4pm
6pm
WHERE: Studio Gallery: 2108 R St.,
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008
tel- 202-232-8734
WILL SHIP THE BOOK TO YOU WHEN YOU PLACE
THE ORDER THROUGH US.
WE CAN PROVIDE BULK DISCOUNTS FOR BOOK STORES.
FULFILL YOUR ORDER HERE:
Richard
Harteis
p.s.
As noted in an earlier message, Ben Panciera has re-vitalized the
Connecticut College website which so beautifully organizes William’s
papers and scholarship. Please check it out and bookmark the following
link if you wish to take a look: collections.conncoll.edu/meredith
Petyo
Varbanov, Second Secretary Political Section, Embassy of the Republic
of Bulgaria;
Nancy Frankel; Richard Harteis; visiting Congressman Joe Courtney
Embassy of Bulgaria -- October 15, 2013
Oct
3, 2013 7:00 pm
Hygienic Gallery, October 3rd, 7:00 to 9:00 pm
featuring
Lyubomir Levchev, Poet Laureate
of Bulgaria, and the 2013 William Meredith Award
for Poetry for Tom Kirlin, and his new book.
Hygienic Art Gallery
79 Bank Street
New London, CT
860-443-8001
Oct
6, 2013 2:00 pm
Award for Poetry Reception -
The William Meredith Foundation
R.J. Julia
Bookstore in Madison Ct, October 6th at 2:00 pm
featuring Lyubomir Levchev, Williams French translations,
CROSSING OVER, and Ann Lauingers new publication,
AGAINST BUTTERFLIES
Provenance Center
165 State Street
New London, CT 06320
860-405-5887
Dear
Friends, we have four exciting events coming in October and we
hope you will be able to join us for one of the poetry presentations
we offer. I am just back from travels in Bulgaria to celebrate
the 100th anniversary of the Union of Bulgarian Writers and the
10th International Conference dedicated to the strength and weakness
of language. It was an excellent opportunity to catch up with
old friends such as Nikolay Petev. He was fragile, but heroic
in his efforts to present these moving celebrations of Bulgarian
literature and international friendship among writers. I gave
a reading of my poetry in Bourgas on the Black Sea and visited
with this years winner of the William Meredith Award for
Poetry, Lyubomir levchev. We will be celebrating his GREEN-WINGED
HORSE and works by Tom Kirlin and Anne Lauinger at several events
in October and we certainly hope you will join us for one or more.
Here then are links to the events and background information on
the authors, as well as a little photo journal of this recent
trip to Bulgaria. See you soon I hope and thank you for your support.
Richard Harteis for the William Meredith Foundation.
Tom
Kirlin, Rita Dawley, Richard Harteis, and Nancy Frankel
relax at Riverrun just before Tom's reading.
Award for
Poetry
Reception -
The William Meredith Foundation
Oct 6 2013
2:00 pm
68 Boston
Post Rd.
Madison, Connecticut 06443 Phone: (203) 245-3959 or (800) 74-READS
Peter
Curman, Dora Boneva, Lyubomir Levchev and Jack Hart at the 100th
anniversary of the Union of Bulgarian Writers, Sofia, September
9/21/2013
Jack
Hart, Valentin Krustev and Corina Stirb Cooper at the Writers'
Conference
October
15 Embassy of Bulgaria reception (By invitation)
October
26th Provenance Center
CELEBRATION OF LITTLE RED TREE PUBLICATIONS
165 State Street
New London, CT 06320
860-405-5887
Dear
Friends,
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.
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.
Poetry
Reading:
"The Hidden Treasure Poetry"
Sunday, September 16, 4 to 6 PM
SPECIAL
ANNOUNCEMENT
Dear
Friend,
The Courtyard
Art Gallery in co-operation with the William Meredith Foundation
and poet Joanie DiMartino cordially invite you to an afternoon
delight: Poetry by fine local poets Gray Jacobik and Ravi
Shankar.
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.
Click
on the Frame sysmbol for a full screen view ^.
WINE:
Poetic Blend, Meredith Red.
"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
RAVI
SHANKAR
RAVI
SHANKAR is the founding editor and Executive
Director of Drunken Boat, one of the world's oldest electronic journals
of the arts. He has published or edited seven books and chapbooks
of poetry, including the 2010 National Poetry Review Prize winner,
Deepening Groove. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he
edited W.W. Norton's Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry
from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond, called "a beautiful
achievement for world literature" by Nobel Laureate Nadine
Gordimer. He has won a Pushcart Prize, been featured in The New
York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education, appeared as a
commentator on the BBC and NPR, received fellowships from the MacDowell
Colony and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and has performed
his work around the world. He is currently Chairman of the Connecticut
Young Writers Trust, on the faculty of the first international MFA
Program at City University of Hong Kong and an Associate Professor
of English at CCSU.
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.
Gray
Jacobik's collections include Brave Disguises (AWP Poetry
Prize, Pittsburgh UP 2002), The Surface of Last Scattering (X.
J. Kennedy Prize, Texas Review Press, 1999), The Double Task (Juniper
Prize, UMASS Press, 1998), and a memoir-in-verse, Little Boy Blue
(CavanKerryPress, 2011). Gray holds a Ph.D. in British and American
Literature from Brandeis University and is a professor emeritus
having retired from Eastern Connecticut State University. For
almost three decades, Gray's poems have received prizes and been
published widely.
She is
a painter as well as a poet. Her paintings can be viewed at:
http://grayjacobikartist.com/
Gray's
poems, books, information about readings and other aspects of
her career as a poet can be found at her poetry website: http://grayjacobik.com/
The
750 Hands
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
Summer
Flicker:MARATHON to screen at
two venues at summer's end. Once again, what has become a contemporary
classic will be available for audiences here in New London and in
Minneapolis this August. The foundation has partnered with the OUT
Twin Cities Film Festival for a special fund-raiser at the Crooked
Pint Ale House this August 14th.And a special repeat performance
will take place August 10th at the Provenence Center here in New
London. Good food, good friends, good
poetry, good wine. Shall we say a good evening all the way around?
Please visit the OUT website for more information on their activities
and the Provenance Center as well. And if you aren't familiar with
the film, here is a five star review we hope will entice you to
join us.
See you at the movies!
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
Selected
for more than 20 national and international film festivals,
winning awards in N.Y, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Las Vegas.
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 Winerys
No. 9 Red was formally awarded Minnesotas " 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%
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday 7 March 2011
CONTACT:
Proprietor (Winery): BILLY SMITH, (612)867-8998, billy@warehousewinery.com
Marketing Specialist (Winery): SAM HANKEY, (952)201-0678, sam@warehousewinery.com
Director (Foundation): RICHARD HARTEIS, marathonfilm@gmail.com
MINNESOTA'S WAREHOUSE WINERY ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH THE WILLIAM
MEREDITH FOUNDATION AND ARTS CENTER ON RELEASE OF "MINNESOTA'S
BEST RED."
Warehouse Winery LLC, is inviting writers, reporters, and press
advocates to celebrate the recent awarding of "Minnesota's
Best Red" and "Minnesota's Best White" by the Minnesota
Food and Wine Experience to our new line of wines; and to commemorate
a new partnership with The William Meredith Foundation on the release
of "Poetic Blend, Meredith Red" - "Minnesota's Best
Red." Press parties are invited, at convenience, to explore
our wine making haven, enjoy free wine tastings and a complementary
tour of our facilities hosted by our award winning winemaker Billy
Smith and his staff (Contact Sam Hankey [above] to arrange a date
and time). Warehouse Winery is located at 6415 Cambridge Street,
Minneapolis, MN 55426.
The Winery is open from 8am-4pm, Monday - Friday. Arrangements outside
of working hours are acceptable. We invite you also to visit our
website: www.warehousewinery.com.
Warehouse Winery, LLC began as a hobby for Wayzata native Billy
Smith, but evolved rapidly when local consumers noticed his natural
ability for winemaking. Billy has put countless hours into first
refining winemaking methods, hand picking his production and promotion
crew, creating promotional materials, investing in new equipment
and eventually turning what began as a passion project into a full
blown commercial winery. Although the popularity of Warehouse Wines
has exploded in the last few years, the winery itself still retains
its quaint, cozy style and remains a beautiful, comfortable, intimate
and exciting venue.
On March 2nd Warehouse Winery's No. 9 Red was formally awarded "Minnesota's
Best Red" at the Minnesota Food and Wine Experience. In true
charitable spirit Smith teams up with Richard Harteis (contact above),
director of the William Meredith Foundation and Arts Center, in
its release under the name "Poetic Blend, Meredith Red".
Billy Smith and Richard Harteis are available for phone or in person
interviews and our facilities are available for personal tours.
Please contact sam@warehousewinery.com or call Sam at (952) 201-0678
to set up a time that is convenient.
MARATHON
WINS IN LAS VEGAS
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.
Marathon
the movie
2011
Anthem Film Festival
Special Jury Prize Trophy
for a Narrative Feature
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.
John
Hracyk
Planting
Trees
New
Trees
Richard
Harteis with mascot
Richard
Harteis
Some
years ago, the Mystic Seaport produced a really beautiful,
leather-bound collection of William's WWII poems entitled,
THE WRECK OF THE THRESHER. It includes wonderful archival
photos from the Navy and contains a journal section of lined,
numbered, pages to record a readers thoughts. The seaport
has graciously contributed a large number of copies of this
book to the foundation. It will be a great way to keep William's
work available, his voice alive among us. We are working with
board member, Johnes Ruta to establish a Foundation Book Store
where this and other books will be available. (Johnes has
also scheduled an art exhibition at the New Haven Free Public
Library, where he is curator, for Deborah Curtis. The Foundation-sponsored
exhibition will open October 14 and run through November.
Details to follow.) We plan to give The Wreck of the Thresher
to participants in the forthcoming William Meredith Poetry
Festival as well as to friends of the foundation. We await
word from Connecticut College who we have invited to sponsor
the festival during National Poetry Month, April 2012. The
English Department has reviewed the project and finds it an
"excellent idea," so we are keeping our fingers
crossed.
NEW
PROJECTS
Finally, we are in the process of publishing David Fisher's
Collected Poems this fall with Little Red Tree Publishing
House of New London. David's work will be the first in the
William Meredith Poetry Award as part of the Poetry Festival.
A second volume will follow, that of Florida Poet Laureate,
Edmond Skellings. Ed was a longtime friend of William's.
Diane Newman has worked with Ed over the years as his colleague
and editor. She has worked for years as program administrator
and most recently as Archive Manager at Evans College. We
plan to welcome Diane as a Meredith fellow for a residency
next summer to begin the digitization of William's archive
and organization of his papers at the library at Riverrun.
I leave
you with three poems, one a sort of "objet trouve"
from a walk to the river, and two from the poets we have
selected to inaugurate The William Meredith Poetry Award
coming soon from Little Red Tree. Recently too, I came across
a YouTube posting of William reading his poem "Crossing
Over." The epigraph to the poem is from Uncle Tom's
Cabin. How this poem was published with the photo from his
youth I have no idea. But the more often William speaks
to us from this internet aethers, all the better, say I.
One evening I was thinking of him and for some reason pulled
my cell phone out of my pocket and there was a picture of
William and Daisy. Disconcerting and lovely.... Enjoy the
pleasures of summer.
To be
sure it hadn't been stolen
from its winter bed beside the barn
I walked to the point as a last resort
in search of the missing kayak.
Early summer had thrown a green
caftan over her as she slept, another
black mark for the navy boy who took her
dancing and didn't bring her home.
The water was dark as onyx,
a lone swan bobbed for grass
just off shore, the horizon divided
into blue and green - irresistible.
Not as deft as in earlier days,
I slipped into her like an old lover
and we set out together in silence
the water singing to us as we cut
the swells of a passing jetski -
a girl and boy, two boys?
holding tight as they zipped up river.
Two dragonflies in media res.
Peace on careless sailors, speed daemons.
To everything there is a season. A time to
drift, to be alone, neither sad nor happy
like the swan gliding away as I return.
I lift her ashore, and an impatient
stow away jumps from the kayak
and scurries into the bushes. A sweet,
dark-eyed mouse, a little grace note
from the universe to end the simple
song of a summer afternoon.
-Richard Harteis
The
Lost Airman
I can't
fly any more because of heart troubles.
One
valve is fluttering in the bloodwind. The whole
Hangar
suffers from a long neglect. And I say
Nothing
is like the sweet quiet of a midwest dawn.
You
wet your feet and the bottoms of your blue
Overalls
with dewshine from the morning, and
Have
time for a slow coffee and a slow read
Of
the old happenings of the world's yesterday.
And
after the long yawn of the huge barn doors, arms
Stretch
out in the sun's light like wings. One can
Drum
a hand's fingers on the lacquer fabric, typing
Nothing
anyone else will read or understand.
And
after the sputter and the runup, after the roll,
The
lift, the throttle back to cruise, there is a little
Minute
to look down at fog wisp and mist puff.
It
is a real wonder to look level at heaven.
And
I don't know why I woke thinking of the white
Sparrow
skeleton I saw once stuck in the black roof tar,
But
I can't fly any more because of my heart's troubles.
And
it is hard to remember, the odor of oil on the clover.
-Edmund
Skellings
The
Bear
Thrown
from the boxcar of the train, the bear
rolls
over and over. He sits up
rubbing
his nose. This must be
some
mistake,
there
is no audience here.
He
shambles off through the woods.
The
forest is veined with trails,
he
does not know which to follow.
The
wind is rising, maple leaves turn up
their
silver undersides in agony, there is a
smell
in the air, and the lightening strikes.
He
climbs a tree to escape. The rain
pours
down, the bear is blue as a gall.
There
is not much to eat
in
the forest, only berries,
and
some small delicious animals
that
live in a mound and bite your nose.
The
bear moves sideways through a broom-straw field.
He
sees the hunters from the corner of his eye
and
is sure they have come to take him back.
To
welcome them , (though there is no calliope)
he
does his somersaults, and juggles
a
fallen log, and something
tears
through his shoulder,
he
shambles away in the forest and cries.
Do
they not know who he is?
After
a while, he learns to fish, to find
the
deep pool and wait for the silver trout.
He
learns to keep his paw up for spiderwebs.
There
is only one large animal, with trees
on
its head, that he can not scare.
At
last he is content to be
alone
in the forest,
though
sometimes he finds a clearing
and
solemnly does tricks,
though
no one sees.
-David
Fisher
Listening
to Light and Color:
Water Works by Deborah Curtis and Sooky Maniquant
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.
****************************************************************
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 cats eyes, flat.
It seems
to me in Deborah Curtis paintings that she has mastered
the vision of Hazards 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 summers
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 countrys 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 summers 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 artists
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
Maniquants main preoccupation is to find in the mysterious
existence of each ones 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
****************************************************************
E xhibition: October 14 - November 30, 2011
****************************************************************
ACCEPTED
The Columbia Gorge Film Festival, Vancover, WA
August 10 to 14, 2011.
ACCEPTED
The Prometheus Festival, York, PA
August 19 to 21, 2011.
ACCEPTED
The Clearwater Film and Music Festival, Florida,
September 22 to 25, 2011.
ACCEPTED
The Gig Harbor Festival, Washington State,
October 13 to 16, 2011.
ACCEPTED
Southern Appalachian International Film Festival
October 26 to November 4, 2011.
DICK
ALLEN CT POET LAUREATE
I've
always liked a very simple definition of poetry as "language
measured and supercharged," for it seems to combine poetry's
two basic elements: some kind of rhythm and poetry's great intensity.
For me, it's the sound of poetry that most often initiates a poem...
I love how lines and phrases can be held in the memory... I like
how poetry can "leap" so suddenly from here to there...
I love the simile, the analogy, the allusions, the secret codes,
and how narrative and meditative poetry can move so rapidly and
beautifully from aspect to aspect, time to time, person to person.
I love poetry's passion. And I love the craft of poetry....
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.
Since
2007, Richard Harteis has worked as the president of the William
Meredith Foundation, www.WilliamMeredithFoundation.org)
a 501.c3 organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of the
late US Poet Laureate, who was his partner of 36 years.
Mr.Harteis served for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia,
worked as a physician assistant in North Africa and Asia and spent
a Fulbright year as writer-in-residence at the American University
in Bulgaria. For his work in the culture, he was accorded Bulgarian
citizenship by decree of the President and Parliament in 1996.
Mr.Harteis has taught literature and creative writing at a number
of institutions over the years including The Catholic University
of America, Creighton University, Mt. Vernon College, and Connecticut
College. For two years he directed the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project
and created the NPR radio program THE SOUND OF WRITING serving as
writer/director and host. He has received honors and awards for
his work including fellowships from the National Endowment for the
Arts, the D.C. Commission on the Arts, and the Ford Foundation.
He is the author of ten books of poetry and prose most recently
the novel, SAPPHIRE DAWN,
a new and selected poems, PROVENCE, and a memoir first published
by W.W. Norton in 1989 entitled MARATHON to critical acclaim (and
re-issued through: www.Vivisphere.com).
His series of elegiac lyrics, THE REVENANT was published by Little
Red Tree Publishing (www.littleredtree.com)
in the summer of 2010. In 2008 he produced a 35 mm, 90-minute adaptation
of MARATHON (www.marathonthemovie.com),
which won Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography in the 2009 New
York International Film Festival as well as the Bronze Palm at the
2010 Mexico International Film Festival.
He is currently working with colleagues on a new film project, COMES
LOVE which is set in New York and Hollywood between the great wars.
He lives in West Palm Beach, Florida and Uncasville, Connecticut
where his home, "Riverrun," was added to the Connecticut
Registry of Historic Places in 2007 and now serves as the William
Meredith Center for the Arts. (www.WilliamMeredithFoundation.org)
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.