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Week Two: Amanda Gorman’s Call Us What We Carry Read-a-Long

August 12, 2022 by

For this 2nd week, we read the 3rd and 4th sections: Earth Eyes and Memoria.

Here are a few questions to get us started:

  • In Earth Eyes, what do you see are the main themes and how do they relate to the collection’s title, Call Us What We Carry?
  • Gorman has a lot of visual forms for her poems, how do they impact your enjoyment of the poems?
  • In Memoria, what do you think Gorman is saying about memory and the act of remembering?
  • What are some of your favorite lines or poems in these two sections?

I’ll be monitoring the comments and replying throughout the weekend. Can’t wait to see what everyone thinks.

Filed Under: challenges, Poetry Reading Challenge Tagged With: , ,

Admit This to No One by Leslie Pietrzyk

August 9, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 255 pgs.
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Admit This to No One by Leslie Pietrzyk is a stunning collection of short stories that are interconnected in ways that will surprise you. All of these stories are in and around Washington, D.C. One of the stories also appeared in the anthology, This Is What America Looks Like (my poem is in there, too, and is how I discovered this collection was being published!)

Pietrzyk’s prose will lull you into a false sense of security before she strikes with lines that upend her stories or characters. Readers go into each story believing they know who these powerful and not-so-powerful characters are, but eventually, the story reveals what we all refuse to admit — we need and crave love and acceptance, even if we do things to make it so hard for people to love and accept us.

From “Till Death Do Us Part”: “What that money adds up to is a satisfying figure, almost a super-tremendously huge figure. That’s me knowing how much he loves me, which might be pathetic if the figure weren’t so satisfyingly huge.” (pg. 15)

From “Wealth Management”: “Winning seems like enough, or all there is anyway, and it’s these thoughts that are in his head during the drive home as Chloe stares straight ahead, eyes glittery with tears she won’t dare let him see.” (pg. 42)

The Speaker of the House looms large in the collection, with his influence reaching far outside the capital, whether his impact on his illegitimate daughter or his first-born daughter or his trusty right-hand woman. Fatherly relationships play a central role in this collection, as do the influences of men on how women perceive themselves, want to be seen, and struggle to be while maintaining their independence.

Like the churn and turbulence of the Potomac River, Pietrzyk provides a glimpse into what political life in D.C. looks like, but she also demonstrates the emptiness and tense tightrope walking that it requires. Admit This to No One is a short story collection for the modern age and definitely one you won’t put down before turning the final page.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of the novel Silver Girl, released in 2018 by Unnamed Press, and called “profound, mesmerizing, and disturbing” in a Publishers Weekly starred review. In November 2021, Unnamed Press published Admit This to No One, a collection of stories set in Washington, DC, which The Washington Post called “a tour de force from a gifted writer.” Pietrzyk’s collection of unconventionally linked short stories, This Angel on My Chest, won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Kirkus Reviews named it one of the 16 best story collections of the year, Her previous novels are Pears on a Willow Tree and A Year and a Day. Short fiction and essays have appeared in Southern Review, Ploughshares, Gettysburg Review, Hudson Review, The Sun, Shenandoah, Arts & Letters, River Styx, Iowa Review, Cincinnati Review, TriQuarterly, New England Review, Salon, Washingtonian, Southern Indiana Review, Washington Post Magazine, and many others. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and in 2020, her story “Stay There” was awarded a Pushcart Prize. Pietrzyk is a member of the core fiction faculty at the Converse low-residency MFA program and often teaches in the MA Program in Writing at Johns Hopkins University. Raised in Iowa, she now lives in North Carolina.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Week One: Amanda Gorman’s Call Us What We Carry Read-a-Long

August 5, 2022 by

For this first week, we read the first two sections: Requiem and What a Piece of Wreck is Man

I wanted to start the discussion with a few questions about these two sections.

1. Why do you think “Ship’s Manifest” is the opening poem to the collection and no included in the first section, “Requiem?”

2. Gorman’s first section’s title signals that the poems will be a remembrance of the dead, how well do you think the poems accomplish this task? What was one of your favorites?

3. In “What a Piece of Wreck is Man,” what do you think she’s saying with these poems? Is man irredeemable? Is there more to our failures?

4. What are some of your favorite poems or lines in these two sections?

I’ll be monitoring the comments and replying throughout the weekend. Can’t wait to see what everyone thinks.

Filed Under: challenges, Poetry Reading Challenge Tagged With: , ,

Results & Schedule: Poetry Read-a-Long for August

July 28, 2022 by

The poll results are in! The August Read-a-Long will be for:

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman:

Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.

Reading poetry can be a solitary venture. I’d like us to read and talk about Gorman’s book on a weekly schedule.

For every Friday in August, I will post my initial thoughts about the given section and leave the comments open for you to either share your favorite poems, pose questions about the poems, or add to the discussion.

Here’s the read-a-long schedule for August (I hope you’ll join and encourage others to do so):

  • First Discussion Post for sections Requiem and What a Piece of Wreck is Man: Aug. 5
  • Second Discussion Post for sections Earth Eyes and Memoria: Aug. 12
  • Third Discussion Post for section Atonement: Aug. 19
  • Final Discussion Post for sections Fury & Faith and Resolution: Aug. 26

If you’ve joined this year’s Poetry Reading Challenge, this can count as your 1 book of poetry you read this year. Join us and have fun! Remember you don’t have to like all the poems.

Filed Under: announcements, Poetry Reading Challenge Tagged With: , , , ,

Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens (audio)

July 27, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Audible, 10+ hrs.
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Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens, narrated by Charlotte Beaumont, is a delightful weekend getaway with Laura, a writer for a lifestyle platform (read sponsored content). She heads to Jersey, England, from London to seek out her parents’ love story. on the plane she ends up meeting an attractive man who stoops to pick up her tampons. But she thinks nothing of this meet cute as she strives to find all the places her parents took pictures during their summer of romance. As a writer of happily ever after (HEA) stories, she has a cinematic notion of love.

While Laura is clearly to focused on HEA stories and finding love, her story demonstrates that she needs to learn to accept reality and learn how to find her own direction. When she falls into Ted’s cab and commissions him on her quest, she has no idea how things will change for her.

I cannot tell you how many times I laughed during this book. There are so many hilarious moments. Laura does have her cringy moments where I wondered what on earth she was thinking and whether she is really that clueless. Her boss, Suki, is a maniac and hard-nosed editor. Laura gets herself in hot water when her priorities shift away from that of Suki’s.

Is Laura’s meet cute with the man, Jasper, whose suitcase she ends up with after her flight to Jersey or is it something less cinematic? Jasper is a well-mannered perfect fit in terms of likes and dislikes, but there’s just no zing. Along the way, Laura meets plenty of colorful relatives and Ted’s family and friends. She finds herself immersed in Jersey’s culture and falling in love with the horizon again — much like that summer of love her parents had.

Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens, narrated by Charlotte Beaumont, is a delightful romantic comedy that I couldn’t help smiling as the narration continued. Laura does grow throughout, and some of that is painful. Ted is a scruffy man at the start who improves upon acquaintance. Cousens is an author I’ll definitely read again.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Sophie Cousens started her career in television, where she produced, among other things, The Graham Norton Show, Big Brother, Ant and Dec and Russell Howard’s Good News. Sophie currently lives in Jersey where she now writes full time. She lives with her husband Tim and has two small children who keep her occupied with important questions such as ‘but did Cinderella have a toothbrush?’ and ‘do giraffe’s know they have really long necks?’ She yearns for a time when she will be able to add a miniature dachshund to the party.

Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo

July 20, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 171 pgs.
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Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, which does include some poems, is what I would imagine a dream walk to be. Harjo shifts from moment to moment in a surreal walk through her memories. She explores her Native American heritage through the eyes of a young child and a woman who is looking for her place in a family and culture where women’s decisions/desires are secondary.

“In the end, we must each tend to our own gulfs of sadness, though others can assist us with kindness, food, good words, and music.” (pg. 23)

“I imagine this place in the story as a long silence. It is an eternity of gray skies. It runs the length of late elementary school through adolescence.” (pg. 63)

Throughout the memoir, there is a cleaving. A family broken apart by a step-father who seeks control over all in his dominion, even children who are not biologically his own and forces them to make adult decisions at too young an age. But there is also the breaking apart of a woman in that she needs to separate herself from that past and her current life to find a voice buried inside and trying to break free.

“For the true warriors of the world, fighting is the last resort to solving a conflict. Every effort is made to avoid bloodshed.” (pg. 150)

Harjo teaches that through pain and suffering there is still beauty and love. Loving oneself can provide the peace we seek, and it also enables us to find our own voices and trails. While she suffered from her mother’s decisions and her father’s abandonment, there is still love there for a family who gave her life. This is not a complete life story, but it is a journey — it is Harjo’s path to poetry. Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo is a homage to those that came before, a nod to her present, and a dream for a future.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms.

Filed Under: challenges, memoir, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: ,

Sarah Rising by Ty Chapman, illustrated by DeAnn Wiley

July 19, 2022 by

Source:
Hardcover, 40 pgs.
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Sarah Rising by Ty Chapman, illustrated by DeAnn Wiley, is a book in which Sarah goes with her dad to a protest for justice. Her father tells her that they need to stand up for people when the police don’t protect them. The simplified message is a strong one for young kids ages 5-8, and the illustrations are very realistic, particularly from the point of view of a young child.

Sarah learns what it means to protect others when a Monarch butterfly is swatted down and she saves it from a police officer who yells at her to get back. And although she loses her way for a bit, the crowd is welcoming and safe, protecting her until she can be reunited with her family. This part will be scary for young kids like it is for Sarah, but it is a reality kids will likely face in a protest.

Chapman’s overarching message is to stand up for justice and what is right, which is important. As a parent, I was concerned about Sarah being lost in a crowd of strangers. It is a little too simplistic to assume the crowd would protect her until she finds her family, but this also could be a discussion for parents to have with their children about the dangers of strangers and getting lost in a crowd.

Sarah Rising by Ty Chapman, illustrated by DeAnn Wiley, is a story about what it means to stand up for others, but kids will likely view Sarah’s being lost as the main point. This happened with my daughter, but their perspectives are often different than an adult perspective. She thought the point was to care for kids who are lost and return them to their loved ones, rather than about standing up for justice. Our conversation took a different turn than the author might have intended.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Ty Chapman is a Twin Cities-based author, poet, puppeteer, and playwright of Nigerian and European descent. He is passionate about art that speaks to the Black experience in America. His recent accomplishments include being named a Loft Literary Center Mirrors and Windows fellow and publishing poetry through multiple journals. Follow Chapman at these locations:

Web: tychapman.org

Twitter: @TyChapmn

Instagram: @ty_chapmn

Facebook: /TyChapmn

About the Illustrator:

DeAnn Wiley is a Detroit-based artist who has been painting traditionally for over five years. She recently broke into the digital art world and shares her artwork with a large online audience. She is an advocate for social justice and is dedicated to making art that is authentic and intentional in empowering Black, queer, fat, and disabled people.

Follow Wiley at the locations below:

Web: DeeLaSheeArtistry.com

Twitter: @DeelasheeArt

Instagram: @DeelasheeArt

Facebook: /DeeLasheeArtistry

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2022, Reference, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

July 13, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 364 pgs.
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People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry has a title that I found misleading because it is not about people that Alex and Poppy meet on vacation but the versions of themselves that they meet on vacation. Alex and Poppy’s friendship blossomed after an awkward rideshare home one summer — yes, they are from the same little Ohio town, but have very different perspectives on that kind of life.

What makes this book work is the banter between Alex and Poppy, even if it seems they are so different that it is impossible to think how this relationship would work in real life. Poppy is a travel writer for R+R Magazine and he’s a high school English teacher. She’s battling “millennial ennui” and much of the book is told from her erratic point of view.

After we meet these protagonists, we spend a lot of time with Poppy. She’s tough to take sometimes, which is probably because she doesn’t know who she is. She knows she loves travel and writing, but she’s still hiding from her family (not because she doesn’t love them) and she’s keeping others at arms length. Even her fun relationship with Rachel seems a bit too close to the surface. Poppy is clearly struggling with self, and this all comes to a head on her last vacation with Alex.

“For the first time in my life, the airport strikes me as the loneliest place in the world.” (pg. 318)

Henry creates a narrative that alternates from the present to the past (Poppy and Alex have gone on previous summer vacations together). In many ways there is a countdown to the reveal of why they don’t speak when we see Poppy during her “career” crisis. It is a predictable reason, but the interactions between Poppy and Alex on this final vacation are worth the wait. You can see why their differences are complementary. You can see why they love each other and take vacations together. You see how each has grown but still has more growing to do as individuals.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry did not make me want to go on vacation with Alex and Poppy. In fact, their messy friendship kind of made me want to stay home. However, I did enjoy the journey and reading this one with a buddy. I will be picking up other Emily Henry novels, like Beach Read and Book Lovers, because I find quirky characters engaging, even if I don’t envy their lives.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Emily Henry writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the now-defunct New York Center for Art & Media Studies. Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Poll: August Read-a-Long for Poetry

July 12, 2022 by

As I noted in the post for the 2022 Poetry Reading Challenge, I wanted to host a read along in August.

Each week, most likely on Thursday or Friday, I will have a post for everyone to comment on about the pages they read. By the end of August, you will have read 1 poetry book.

The poetry book selection I’m leaving to you.

Information about each book:

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman:

Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.

Make Me Rain by Nikki Giovanni:

For more than thirty years, Nikki Giovanni’s poetry has inspired, enlightened, and dazzled readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, this artist long hailed as a healer and a sage returns with this profound book of poetry in which she continues to call attention to injustice and give readers an unfiltered look into the most private parts of herself.

In Make Me Rain, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism. Giovanni reaffirms her place as a uniquely vibrant and relevant American voice with poems such as “I Come from Athletes” and “Rainy Days”—calling out segregation and Donald Trump; as well as “Unloved (for Aunt Cleota)” and “”When I Could No Longer”—her personal elegy for the relatives who saved her from an abusive home life.

Stirring, provocative, and resonant, the poems in Make Me Rain pierce the heart and nourish the soul.

The Tradition by Jericho Brown:

Jericho Brown’s daring new book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown’s poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie? Brown makes mythical pastorals to question the terrors to which we’ve become accustomed, and to celebrate how we survive. Poems of fatherhood, legacy, blackness, queerness, worship, and trauma are propelled into stunning clarity by Brown’s mastery, and his invention of the duplex―a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues―testament to his formal skill. The Tradition is a cutting and necessary collection, relentless in its quest for survival while revelling in a celebration of contradiction.

Please vote for one of the following:

3
August Poetry Read-a-Long

 

THE POLL IS NOW CLOSED!

Filed Under: announcements, challenges, Poetry Reading Challenge Tagged With: ,

Scale Model of a Country at Dawn by John Sibley Williams

July 7, 2022 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 85 pgs.
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Scale Model of a Country at Dawn by John Sibley Williams, winner of the 2020 Cider Press Review Book Award, is a collection that defies categorization. The opening poem, “The Gift,” establishes the poet’s framework for the collection, crafting a gift for the reader that will endure despite his loss and contain the harsh and beautiful moments of life. “Just a rough little box built from my bones/to keep the bones you’ll collect in.//” (pg. XIII)

Although there are more personal stories and imaginings within these poems, Williams is taking us (the reader) on a journey into the darker underbrush, the innate desire to seek out and understand the underbelly of humanity and life. “We all need something to scream into,” he says in “Ordinary Beasts.” This poem leads us to the build up of frustration and anger that can come with being part of society, family, and life in general. He further examines this darkness in humanity with “Like a plague of locusts,” in which it is clear that our presence and our actions have led to changes in the landscape: “This is not the sky/our grandmothers taught us to pray to;//this canvas of bald trees & splintered/schools not like anything//we can shape a childhood from./” (pg. 6)

Williams is building to something in this collection; he’s not espousing a particular philosophy or way of thinking. He’s merely building the framework that is humanity in all its emotions and faults. In the title poem, “Scale Model of a Country at Dawn,” he lays down what it means to be a father and raise a “man,” but the choice always remains with the son, just as it did with him as a boy. How do we take what has been taught and modeled for us and become our own person?

As It Is on Earth (pg. 26)

It's like that sometimes. A man bends
so completely he begins believing in
his own holiness. An empty house
kids are too scared to vandalize sees itself
in time as haunted. Even the moon
our dogs wail to each night as if in prayer
fears a response is expected. The war
my brother brought home & the home he 
pined for in war converge in an unruly
absence. Is it finally fair to say like gods
we make images to pour ourselves into?
Like rivers, how they tend to move
farther from the source? What skin
remembers & the mind reimagines:

between them a truth serrated as light.

Throughout Williams’ collection, there is a tension between what we desire and what is reality and between what we envision and what becomes. “Sinkholes” is a gem of a poem that illustrates this idea of ideals and memories versus reality and the uncontrollable. The “scale model” is the start of the country, but how we build it and repair it is the legacy. “Like the sky, roofs are meant to leak, bow./& replacing the buckets every night is a ritual//” (pg. 78, “Restoration”)

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Poet:

John Sibley Williams is the author of seven poetry collections, including Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award), THE DROWNING WORKS (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty-six-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. Previous publishing credits include Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Verse Daily, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.
Filed Under: challenges, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Kill It With Fire by Marianne Bellotti (audio)

June 16, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Audible, 7+ hrs.
I am an Amazon affiliate

Kill It With Fire: Manage Aging Computer Systems (and Future Proof Modern Ones) by Marianne Bellotti, narrated by Katie Koster, is an audiobook I read to prepare for an interview with the author for work. So this review will be a bit unusual. Bellotti’s book is about modernizing technology, but not for the sake of getting the latest and greatest. Her book is about enterprises taking a careful look at their current operational systems, which are the backbones of many businesses today, and determining how best to maintain, upgrade, or modernize them for current business needs and the future of the business.

I found this audio to be at times engaging and circular. There are arguments made early on that are reiterated later in the book, which makes sense when you consider this is a business focused book making an argument for interdisciplinary teamwork in the world of technology that focuses on ensuring technology is not only maintained but evolved over time to meet future business needs.

Bellotti offers a lot of wonderful advice on how to work to modernize systems without burning down the entire place and starting over from scratch. Like she says, technology that is doing the job most effectively is the best option for the business, but for that technology to be at its best, it also needs to be updated and maintained.

Kill It With Fire: Manage Aging Computer Systems (and Future Proof Modern Ones) by Marianne Bellotti, narrated by Katie Koster, is a good resource for businesses trying to get a handle on the latest systems and options out there while still ensuring their business hums along as effectively as it can.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Marianne Bellotti is a software engineer and relapsed anthropologist. Her work focuses on how culture influences the implementation and development of software. She runs engineering teams and teaches other people how to tackle complex systems. Most of her work has focused on restoring old systems to operational excellence, but she also works on the safety of cutting edge systems and artificial intelligence. 

Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, purchased, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Inventory of Doubts by Landon Godfrey

June 2, 2022 by

Source: Publisher
Paperback, 84 pgs.
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Doubts follow us in our daily lives, much like the little devils on the shoulders of cartoon characters. Listing our doubts in a journal or simply writing a list when we tackle something new or challenge ourselves can help reduce our anxiety and fear. Landon Godfrey explores these ideas in the collection, Inventory of Doubts, but rather than rely on a human voice, Godfrey has anthropomorphized objects like a feather boa, a dishrag, a box, and many others.

In her prose-like stories, these objects come alive, they become more than the discarded thing. An antique inkwell is not as sophisticated or as academic as it is perceived, and the attic stuffed with discarded items that we no longer care for wishes to be eaten away by termites so it could see the sky and be in awe. Godfrey has collected the uncollectable — silence. We know these objects and their purposes because we have assigned them, but in the silence, is that all that they are? Only what we’ve determined them to be? “Unable to fit in anyone’s pocket, a jealous boulder considers cures for loneliness while it pauses on a cliff.” (“Boulder,” pg. 7)

These objects are stand-ins. They are placeholders for greater questions about our own purposes and our own determinations of what is good and useful and what is to be praised and what is to be frowned upon. Like the dishrag that “experiments with justice, releasing some moisture back into the freedom of air, while retaining a few drops of water indefinitely in a grease-guarded cell.” (pg. 17) Our own experiments, like that of the dishrag, often do not have the best results, but there is always time for change, for reparations. Just like the rag, we too can be reshaped and given new purpose.

Godfrey’s Inventory of Doubts are as fantastical as they are rooted in our own realities. Our conversations with ourselves and our constant “little voices” often have us running in circles or falling into circular patterns of logic, leaving us little room to expand. This collection is an exploration of the human condition: “The seep and clot of it. The furtive fingers of it. The blob and spread of it. The orgy of it. The impossible to remove of it.” (“Stain,” pg. 64) Gloriously imaginative, surprising, and haunting.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Landon Godfrey is the recipient of a 2013 Regional Artist Project Grant and a 2011-2012 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship. In selecting her first book, “Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Soufflé Chiffon Gown,” for the Cider Press Review Book Award, David St. John writes, “Never has the sumptuous materiality of language felt more seductive than in Landon Godfrey’s remarkable debut collection, ‘Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Soufflé Chiffon Gown.’ These exquisite poems are both sensually compelling and intellectually rigorous—a rare feat indeed. The iridescence of this marvelous volume continues to glow long after one has turned out the lights.” Printed at Asheville BookWorks, a limited edition letterpress chapbook, “In the Stone: Three Prose Poems,” will be published in Spring 2013. Landon’s poems have appeared in journals and anthologies—including The Southeast Review, Lyric, Chelsea, POOL, Studium in Polish translation, and Best New Poets 2008—featured at Verse Daily and Broadsided, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her prose on poetry has been published by Q Avenue Press and Gulf Coast, and is forthcoming from Voltage Poetry. Born and raised in Washington, DC, she now lives in Black Mountain, NC, with her husband, poet Gary Hawkins.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,