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Blackbird Poetry Festival Features Billy Collins, “The Most Popular Poet in America”
Date: December 20, 2013 Contact: Pam Kroll Simonson, (443) 518-4568, hocopolitso@yahoo.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Blackbird Poetry Festival Features Billy Collins,
“The Most Popular Poet in America”
Howard County Poetry & Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo), in partnership with Howard Community College’s Office of Student Life, English and World Languages Division, and Arts & Humanities Division, presents the annual Blackbird Poetry Festival on Thursday, April 24, 2014, at Howard Community College. The all-day event features readings by two-term National Poet Laureate Billy Collins, called “the most popular poet in America” by The New York Times; workshops for HCC students by Bruce George, poet and co-founder of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam; readings by student poets from HCC; and on-campus patrols by the Poetry Police, who will award individuals carrying a poem in recognition of national Poem in Your Pocket Day. The theme of this year’s Blackbird Poetry Festival is “Poetry Unmasked,” exploring the bare truth of poetry.
“Billy Collins is famous for conversational, witty poems that welcome readers with humor,” writes The Poetry Foundation, an independent literary group, “but often slip into quirky, tender or profound observation on the everyday, reading and writing, and poetry itself.”
“His last three collections of poems have broken sales records for poetry,” writes the Winter Park Institute for intellectual engagement at Rollins College. “His readings are usually standing room only, and his audience–enhanced tremendously by his appearances on National Public Radio–includes people of all backgrounds and age groups.”
Collins will read and discuss his work at Nightbird, the Blackbird Poetry Festival’s evening event, at 7:30 p.m. at Smith Theatre, located in the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center at HCC in Columbia. A book signing and reception will follow. Collins will give a short free reading at Smith Theater with student poets at 2:30 p.m. He will also tape an episode of The Writing Life, HoCoPoLitSo’s Bravo-TV Arts for Change Award-winning interview show seen on YouTube. George will facilitate creative writing/performance poetry workshops in morning classes at HCC.
Tickets to Nightbird are $50 for the first five rows in the center aisle and $30 for orchestra and balcony ($15 for students). Tickets can be purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/523094 or www.hocopolitso.org . For more information, call HoCoPoLitSo at (443) 518-4568 or email hocopolitso@yahoo.com. Seniors in Columbia can request transportation by calling the Senior Events Shuttle at (410) 715-3087. HCC is an accessible campus. Accommodation requests should be made to HoCoPoLitSo by April 17, 2014.
HoCoPoLitSo is a nonprofit organization designed to enlarge the audience for contemporary poetry and literature and celebrate culturally diverse literary heritages. Founded in 1974 by National Book Award finalist Ellen Conroy Kennedy, HoCoPoLitSo accomplishes its mission by sponsoring readings with critically acclaimed writers; literary workshops; programs for students; and The Writing Life, a writer-to-writer interview show seen on YouTube, HCC-TV, and other local stations. HoCoPoLitSo receives funding from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the state of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts; Howard County Arts Council through a grant from Howard County government; The Columbia Film Society; Community Foundation of Howard County; the Jim and Patty Rouse Charitable Foundation; and individual contributors.
For a pdf of this press release, click here: Blackbird 2014 Press Release.
HoCoPoLitSo to Welcome Colum McCann to the 35th Irish Evening – Tickets now on sale.
Colum McCann. Photo by Brendan Bourke.
The international award winning author Colum McCann is HoCoPoLitSo’s guest for its 35th Annual Irish Evening at 7:30 pm, March 1, 2013 at the Smith Theater, Horowitz Center for Visual and Performing Arts on the campus of Howard Community College.
General Admission Tickets are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/287811 or by sending a check payable and mailed to HoCoPoLitSo, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, DH 239, Columbia, MD 21044. Tickets purchased before Feb. 1, 2013 are $30 each, $35 if purchased after Feb. 2.
So Many Stories to Be Told: An Evening with Colum McCann will highlight this major voice in today’s literary landscape’s with a discussion of his National Book Award winning novel Let the Great World Spin and his upcoming novel, Transatlantic, due out in late 2013.
McCann’s reading will be followed by Narrowbacks, Eileen Korn, Jesse Winch, Terence Winch, Linda Hickman, and Brendan Mulvihill on fiddle in a concert of traditional Irish music with stepdancers from the Culkin School.
McCann, a two-time winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the most lucrative literary award in the world, has published 5 novels and numerous short stories and articles. In 2003 McCann was named Esquire Magazine’s “Best and Brightest” young novelist. He has also been awarded a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Novel of the Year Award and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame.
McCann follows other great Irish authors who have come to Howard County including Frank McCourt, Eavan Boland, Hugo Hamilton, Colm Tóibín, Paul Durcan and Paula Meehan to name a few. For years, HoCoPoLitSo’s Irish Evening has recognized and celebrated the enormous impact of Irish-born writers on the world of contemporary literature.
A Few Edith Pearlman Resources Ahead of Her June 27th Reading in Columbia, Maryland
On June 27th, HoCoPoLitSo will host the renowned short story writer Edith Pearlman. The event, part of this year’s Columbia Festival of the Arts will be held at the lovely Oakland Manor. In preparation for Ms. Pearlman’s visit, we offer these resources.
(Note: Edith Pearlman’s books, available online through the normal outlets, will be for sale at the reading. Edith Pearlman will be recording an episode of HoCoPoLitSo’s The Writing Life on her visit where she will be in conversation with author Carrie Brown. Look for information about airing dates on this website in the coming months.)
Interviews:
- The Millions Interview, “Overnight Sensation? Edith Pearlman on Fame and the Importance of Short Fiction.” As The Rumpus says, “The interview includes ambling thoughts on Pearlman’s work and interests, and includes mention of Hermes typewriters, polar expeditions, gun collecting, Pearlman’s stylistic influences, and the task of literature.”
- Biblio Buffet’s Talking Across the Table: “Edith Pearlman: An Interview.“
Articles:
- The Practice of Creativity: “Women Writers form the Present Who Inspire – Edith Pearlman.“
- Boston Globe, “With ‘Binocular Vision,’ Brookline’s Edith Pearlman catches the eye of the literary establishment Short Stories, Long Career.“
- Wall Street Journal, “Butterflies and Pariahs.”
- Wikipedia
Reading Guide:
YouTube:
- Edith Pearlman reads from Binocular Vision at the 2011 NBA Finalists Reading
- Reading “Lineage” from Binocular Vision, Center for Fiction, 2011.
And, of course, there is Pearlman’s own website: www.edithpearlman.com.
HoCoPoLitSo Recognizes High School Students for Literary Achievement
Press Release:
For thirty-one (31) years the HOward COunty POetry and LITerature SOciety (HoCoPoLitSo) has awarded book prizes to the winners of its All County Writing Competition, and honored students nominated by their teachers for Promise and Achievement in Language Arts. To foster lifelong reading habits and a love of literature, HoCoPoLitSo presents book awards with personalized bookplates. The tradition continued this year as HoCoPoLitSo board members made presentations at all Howard County public high school honors assemblies for seniors.
The ten creative writing winners were AMY FARB (Centennial), WEI YUE LU (Centennial), and MARY SIMPSON (Centennial) in the personal essay category; CAROLINE CROWDER (Mt. Hebron), JACLYN ANDREWS (Howard), PATRICIA CARMONA (Mt. Hebron) and BRIDGET MACKRELL (Mt. Hebron) in the poetry category; and in the short story category, REBECCA CURRAN (Mt. Hebron), JULIA DUNN (Howard), and SYDNEY CHANMUGAN (Mt. Hebron). This year’s judges were Patricia VanAmburg, writer and professor of literature, Joyce Braga, young adult author, and Mark Braga, technical writer and engineer.
In addition, twenty-six students were chosen by their English Departments to receive HoCoPoLitSo’s Promise and Achievement Award in Language Arts. The honorees were: LAUREN BERMAN, JACOB SMITH (Atholton) SARAH CALVERT, WEI YUE LU (Centennial), EMILY SCHWEICH, ANNELIESE FAUSTINO (Glenelg), SIERRA SIMPSON, JASON SCHOENFELD (Hammond), SIERRA PETERS, RACHEL McMURRER (Homewood Center), LINDSEY SABLOWSKI, MADELINE STUDT (Howard), JESSICA GUERRERO, JUSTIN BIEGEL (Long Reach), COURTNET O’HARO, JONATHAN MATHEWS (Marriotts Ridge), NICHOLAS CORTINA, HANNAH VAUGHAN (Mt. Hebron), LYNN COURNOYER, ROSS RHEINGANS-YOO (Oakland Mills), HALEY SWEETON, ALEXANDER SHAW (Reservoir), IFEOLUWA OLUJOBI, CHRISTINA ROMANO (River Hill), EMMA BOONE, JOE WAN (Wilde Lake).
Thirty-five students in all received books by such outstanding poets and writers as: Margaret Atwood, Sandra Beasley, Hugo Hamilton, Donald Hall, Shelia Kohler, Laura Lippman, Frank McCourt, Grace Paley, Francine Prose, Reynolds Price, and Colm Tóibín. HoCoPoLitSo has been dedicated to enlarging the audience for contemporary poetry and literature through public readings, special events, writer-in-residence visits, and The Writing Life, a cable television series produced at Howard Community College, since 1974.
HoCoPoLitSo is supported by the Howard County Arts Council through a grant from Howard County government, the Maryland State Arts Council through the State of Maryland and the Department of Business and Economic Development, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Columbia Film Society, the Columbia Foundation, the Jim & Patty Rouse Charitable Foundation, the Rouse Company Foundation, and Friends of HoCoPoLitSo.
Now Online: The Writing Life with Colum McCann on HoCoPoLitSo’s YouTube Channel.
In this edition of HoCoPoLitSo’s “The Writing Life,” poet and musician Terence Winch talks with Irish novelist Colum McCann (winner of the 2009 National Book Award for Let the Great World Spin) after his second novel debuted to great acclaim. McCann, who grew up middle class in Dublin, talks about his two-year bicycle trek around America, gathering stories as a journalist, that helped turn him into a novelist. And while he counts Irish writers as influences, he mostly read Kerouac and Burroughs as a teen.
McCann reads from his first novel, Songdogs, and from This Side of Brightness, about the New York subway tunnels and the homeless who make their homes there, as well as the sand hogs who built the tunnels. McCann spent a year in the tunnels, and counts listening as the best way to research. “I don’t want to write about my family, about me. I think it’s much more liberating to be in the imagination. People always tell to write what you know about, but I say no, write about what you don’t know about.”
Visit www.youtube.com/user/hocopolitso to view all the episodes currently available online. Enjoy and give us feedback, please, so we can improve this award-winning series.
HoCoPoLitSo’s “The Writing Life” Now on YouTube
Just in time for National Poetry Month, the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society’s award-winning cable television program, “The Writing Life,” a writer-to-writer talk show, can now be seen at YouTube. Take the opportunity to hear poetry read and discussed by the poet themselves and to listen to the stories behind novels their authors recount as selections are read. In a series produced by HoCoPoLitSo, distinguished writers interview featured guests, asking questions about craft and process.
Follow the link at http://www.youtube.com/user/hocopolitso or type in “Hocopolitso” on YouTube’s search box to be introduced to writers from around the world. Check back often as episodes are being digitized and uploaded for viewing.
From seven Maryland Poets Laureate to five Nobel Laureates and twenty-two Pulitzer Prize winners, more than 100 poets and writers have appeared on HoCoPoLitSo’s cable television series since 1986. Guests range from edgy emerging writers to the most distinguished names in contemporary letters, such as Amiri Baraka, Mark Doty, Rita Dove, Martín Espada, Donald Hall, Joy Harjo, Edward P. Jones, Paula Meehan, W.S. Merwin and National Poet Laureate Phil Levine.
Several of these half-hour shows have been honored by the National Hometown Video Festival and the BRAVO network’s “Arts for Change” Award. “The Writing Life” is produced at HCC-TV on the campus of Howard Community College. “The format is ingenious …. (One) comes away with the privileged feeling of having eavesdropped on a private conversation between two artists talking shop,” says critic Geoffrey Himes.
Select editions of “The Writing Life” are available at Howard County Public Library, HCC Library or at www.howardcc.edu/twl or for purchase from HoCoPoLitSo.
Enjoy a sample, Nayomi Ayala talks with Martin Espada in a 2011 episode of The Writing Life:
Clear the Calendar: Blackbird Poetry Festival, April 26th – Addonizio, Cirelli, Ayala, Mother Ruckus
Mark your calendars, it’s time for the Blackbird Poetry Festival: April 26, 2012
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Howard Community College and HoCoPoLitSo are proud to present “Poetry In Harmony,” the 4th annual Blackbird Poetry Festival. This year’s festival, mainly on location at the College will feature Michael Cirelli, Kim Addonizio, Naomi Ayala and Mother Ruckus. There will be readings (including by faculty and students), workshops, performances and the ‘Poetry Police” who cite students caught without poetry on hand for National Poem in Your Pocket Day.
The day’s events are mostly free and open to the public, others for students only. The evening will feature a “Poetry in Harmony” Coffee House reading with Michael Cirelli, Kim Addonizio and a performance by musical group Mother Ruckus; tickets for this performance will be $15 general admission, $10 for seniors and students with id (now available for purchase online, click here).
Festival schedule:
- 9:30 – 10:30 Naomi Ayala speaks at Howard County School System (HCPSS) Professional Development Day Session I
- 10:40 – 11:40 Naomi Ayala speaks at HCPSS Prof. Dev. Day Session II
- 10:00 Poetry Police start to patrol HCC at campus looking for National Poem in Your Pocket Day violations
- 11:00 – 12:20 Kim Addonizio meets with HCC’s Creative Writing Class (closed)
- 11:00 – 12:20 Michael Cirelli meets with students and community (open and free)
- 2:30 – 4:30 Readings by: Naomi Ayala, Michael Cirelli, Kim Addonizio and regional poets, HCC students and faculty (open and free)
- 7:00 Doors open for “Poetry in Harmony,” a coffeehouse-styled reading
- 7:30 – 9:30 Readings by Michael Cirelli and Kim Addonizio, and a performance by musical group Mother Ruckus, which includes performance poet Gayle Danley and songstress Sahffi. ($15, $10 for seniors and for students with an id)
Performer bios:
Clockwise form top left: Kim Addonizio, Mother Ruckus, Naomi Ayala, Michael Cirelli.
Michael Cirelli has been a National Poetry Slam individual finalist, winning the finals in both San Francisco and Berkeley. Cirelli has performed all over the country while teaching writing workshops to teenagers up and down the West coast. While in L.A., he was the director of PEN Center West’s, Poet In the Classroom program. He is currently the Director of Urban Word NYC. He is also the director of the Annual Spoken Word & Hip-Hop Teacher & Community Leader Training Institute at the University of Wisconsin that won the 2007 North American Association of Summer Sessions “Creative and Innovative Program Award.” His collection of poetry, Lobster with Ol’ Dirty Bastard was a New York Times Book Review independent press best seller. Vacations on the Black Star Line is his second work. blog.grdodge.org/2010/05/21/poetry-fridays-2010-festival-poet-michael-cirelli/
Kim Addonizio has been called “one of our nation’s most provocative and edgy poets.” Her latest books are Lucifer at the Starlite, recently a finalist for the Poets Prize and the Northern CA Book Award; and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within. Kalima Press recently published her Selected Poems in Arabic. Addonizio’s many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA Fellowships, and Pushcart Prizes for both poetry and the essay. Her collection Tell Me was a National Book Award Finalist. Other books include two novels, Little Beauties and My Dreams Out in the Street. Addonizio offers private workshops in Oakland, CA, and online, and often incorporates her love of blues harmonica into her readings.www.kimaddonizio.com
Naomi Ayala makes her residence in Washington, DC where, until recently, she served as the coordinator for curriculum and instruction at the National Council of La Raza’s Center for Community Educational Excellence, and the Program Director for Celebra la Ciencia: The Hispanic Community Science Festivals Project of the Self Reliance Foundation and the Hispanic Radio Network. As a freelance writer and consultant, Ms. Ayala currently helps develop, edit and promote curricula and other educational materials – in both her native Spanish as well as English – for innovative education programs and national organizations. She runs professional development workshops for teachers, conducts specialized residencies in public and private schools (K-12), while presenting her poetry to diverse audiences around the U.S. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Teaching for Change. Ms. Ayala is the author of two books of poetry, Wild Animals on the Moon, selected by the New York City Public Library as one of 1999’s Books for the Teen Age, and This Side of Early. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies around the U.S. and beyond.
Mother Ruckus Sahffi and Gayle Danley: featuring a combination of slam and song. Mother Ruckus has performed at the International Festival in Baltimore and the Teavolve Café. To get a sense of their sound, check out: www.sahffi.com. Sahffi is part of a group called t3n (pronounced ten) www.t3n.us/p/music.html
Now online: Belinda McKeon in Conversation with Colm Tóibín on HoCoPoLitSo’s The Writing Life.
The episode of HoCoPoLitSo’s TV show The Writing Life, featuring Belinda McKeon hosting Colm Tóibín, is available through February for online viewing at http://www.howardcc.edu/Visitors/hcctv/programming/writinglife.html. In town for the 33rd annual Evening of Irish Music & Writing this time last year, the two sat down to have a literary conversation in Howard Community College’s TV studio. Through the half hour, they discuss Tóibín’s books and shed light on his work as a writer.
Tóibín’s list of achievements is long, his talent, vast. He is known and awarded for his novels and short stories and for his journalism and literary criticism, as well. This was his second appearance for HoCoPoLitSo’s Irish Evening.
Belinda McKeon reading the Form and Structure issue of Little Patuxent Review.
Playwright and novelist Belinda McKeon’s debut novel Solace, published last year, has won the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book of the Year (2011) and Ireland’s Sunday Independent recognized her with its Best Newcomer Award.
The annual Irish Evening is a perennial favorite and a highpoint to each HoCoPoLitSo season. This year a reading by memoirist and novelist Hugo Hamilton will be followed by the Irish music of the Narrowbacks accompanied by traditional Irish step dancers on Friday, February 17th at Smith Theater on the campus of Howard Community College in Columbia. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets online.
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Watch the episode: http://www.howardcc.edu/Visitors/hcctv/programming/writinglife.html
Note: this episode aired on the Howard Community Website for the month of February 2012. Episodes are featured on that site for a month at time, each new month brings a new episode or encore performance. To visit a growing and permanent archive of The Writing Life episodes online, visit the HoCoPoLitSo YouTube Channel.
Recommended: Super Bowl Sunday, It’s All About… Diane Ackerman
Now that the teams are set, it’s time to talk about Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, we’ll put down our literary-mindedness and pick up the rallying cry for the sportiest day in America:
For some, Super Bowl Sunday is all about the commercials, for others it might be the nachos. There are those, of course, who savor the taste of one of the two gridiron sides in fierce competition for the sport’s most prestigious trophy. Just who will the champ be? Fans of the Patriots and the Giants will have their eyes glued to the action, hoping and hollering in support.
For us, the real celebration this special day incurs is a trip to Frederick to take in a reading. That’s right, a reading. You didn’t really expect us to put down our literary-mindedness completely, did you? Rest assured, it won’t get in the way of any Super Bowl activities, none at all. We promise to chip crunch, commercial watch and holler with the rest of the country. But first…
Diane Ackerman
Very excited! It’s time for the Burr Artz Poetry Series reading again. The series, held Super Bowl Sundays (February 5th this year), is a perfect cultural compliment to the day’s sporting. It starts at 2pm at the Weinberg Center in Frederick and ends well before party and game time. It’s a great series that’s brought Billy Collins, Nikki Giovanni and Robert Hass to the gorgeous venue. We’re excited to learn this year Diane Ackerman is featured. Plus… it’s free. (And, for us, it is a literary event we are not hosting, so we can sit back and just enjoy!)
Diane Ackerman, a literary force for decades with her work as an essayist, poet and naturalist, has authored some two dozen books, among them are eight volumes of poetry, more than a dozen non-fiction works and two children’s stories. There are many favorites in the list; perhaps the most renowned is A Natural History of the Senses (1990). Her most recent work, from just last year, also non-fiction, is One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing. In 2007, her novel The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story captivated reader attention around the world.
Mark your calendars and save a little time on Super Bowl Sunday for Diane Ackerman, it will compete as a treat on a day that otherwise tends to be just about football.
- Diane Ackerman’s website
- Diane Ackerman on wikipedia
- Event details:
- February 5th, 2pm. Free admission
- Weinberg Center directions
- As we understand, the event is underwritten by the C. Burr Artz Trust and is presented in partnership with the Weinberg Center, the Frederick County Public Library and Frederick Reads.
Join Hugo Hamilton and the Narrowbacks at HoCoPoLitSo’s 34th Annual Irish Evening, February 17, 2012.
HoCoPoLitSo’s annual Evening of Irish Writing and Music returns with a reading by Hugo Hamilton and performance of traditional and original Irish music by the Narrowbacks.
Dublin born novelist Hugo Hamilton will read from his work. The central character in two of his Ireland-based novels, Pat Coyne, is considered one of the most original figures in contemporary Irish literature. In 1992 Hamilton won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for The Speckled People as a ‘book for our times and perhaps for all time’. It won the prestigious Prix Femina Etranger in France, and appeared on The New York Times notable books list.
Reading will be followed by a concert of traditional Irish music performed by the Narrowbacks – Terry Winch, Jesse Winch, Brendan Mulvihill, Linda Hickman and Eileen (Korn) Estes – and traditional step dancing with performers from the Caulkin School of Traditional Irish Dance. Music from harpist Jared Denhard will open the evening.
The event will be held at Howard Community College’s Smith Theatre in the Horowitz Performing Arts Center. Note change of venue.
Tickets are now available online here.
HoCoPoLitSo 