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Duly Noted: Terrance Hayes, HoCoPoLitSo Vistor Last Fall, Appointed to President Obama’s National Student Poets Program
Terrance Hayes, Monteabarro Hall, October 2011
Congratulations are in order for Terrance Hayes who was recently chosen for President Barack Obama’s new National Student Poets Program (NSPP) panel. “Hayes is one of four literary leaders who will judge students who received a National Scholastic Art & Writing Award for poetry. Five high school students will be selected to serve for a year as national poetry ambassadors.” He is a wonderful choice for the task.
In October of last year, Terrance Hayes joined Tara Betts on stage at Howard Community College’s Monteabarro Hall to launch HoCoPoLitSo’s 2011-12 season with our inaugural Lucille Clifton Poetry Series reading. In 2010, Hayes won the National Book Award for his 4th poetry collection Lighthead. He is currently on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
- CMU press release: http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2011/december/dec7_hayespoets.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.
Hugo Hamilton Makes an Appearance in Howard Magazine
Check it out: Hugo Hamilton leans out of the latest Howard Magazine calendar in dramatic fashion. He will be reading as a part of HoCoPoLitSo’s 34 Annual Irish Evening fundraiser on February 17th. Tickets online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/211558
Little Patuxent Review Launches Social Justice Issue, Saturday at 2pm
This Saturday, Little Patuxent Review, a twice yearly literary and arts publication out of Howard County, hosts a free contributor reading at Oliver’s Carriage House to celebrate the launch of its latest, Social Justice issue. The issue features Columbia resident and HoCoPoLitSo board member Truth Thomas as its guest editor.
Scheduled to read at the event are Melinda Abbott, JoAnn Balingit, Dylan Bargteil, Ann Bracken, Susan Gabrielle, Stephanie Gibson, Jen Grow, Clarinda Harriss, Kathleen Hellen, Alan King, Michael Salcman, Lauren Schmidt, Jill-Ann Stolley, James Toupin, Susan Turner-Conlon and Patricia VanAmburg.
Copies of the issue, which also features an interview with Martin Espada by another HoCoPoLitSo board member, Susan Thornton Hobby, will be available for sale ($10).
Details:
When: Saturday, January 28th, 2pm
Where: Oliver’s Carriage House, 5410 Leaf Treader Way, Columbia, MD 21044
Unable to make the event, track down a copy of the issue online.
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.
Shakespeare Visits Howard County Middle Schoolers
Year after year, a highlight of our literary season is being able to introduce the works of Shakespeare to students. This morning (December 19th), HoCoPoLitSo brings Bill’s Buddies, a troupe of Shakespearean actors from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, to yet another audience of Howard County middle school students with a performance hosted at Marriotts Ridge High School.
Bills Buddies present scenes from a range of The Bard’s work in a lively manner that often finds audience members up on stage and ‘into the language’. As their study guide suggests,
Shakespeare’s plays still contain timeless situations you might see played out in the halls of your school everyday: miscommunicating your feelings, fights between friends, and problems within families, just to name a few. Watch Bill’s Buddies bring Shakespeare’s words to life as they perform at your school, and decide for yourself if Shakespeare’s language is worth a chance!
The engaging performances open the eyes and ears of students to the relevance of the work now centuries on, letting it speak to their generation. There’s magic in the web of it.
Just Who is Who? And the Annual Report.
Did you forget a face in the Annual Report post card? Click the image below to go the Annual Report page where you will find the answers you seek, as well, the 2011 Annual Report highlighting HoCoPoLitSo’s past year accomplishments.
While you are here, consider making a tax-deductible end-of-the-year donation supporting HoCoPoLitSo. It’s the easiest of ways to help ‘make HoCoPoLitSo happen’ and launch us forward into a new year of achievement. Just click the PayPal Donate button and off you go. Thank you so very much for your support.
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.
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Welcome to HoCoPoLitSo’s WordPress-based website. Look around, you’ll find a growing amount of information on the organization, its events and activities, its history and its plans, as well as ways to support this renowned literary non-profit.
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