Category Archives: matilda fletcher

PCA residency reading list

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At the Prairie Center of the Arts for my six weeks summer residency, one of my succors was to read, much as research, some as pleasure and fun, and occasionally as inspiration. Here they are, organized by genre:

Novels & Creative Nonfiction:

As for research, I read hundreds of newspaper articles written by or about Matilda Fletcher, a ream of paper concerning family lore, photographs, and genealogical discoveries, a short stack of analytical texts, and the frequent google search when I needed to double-check something. For example, I discovered the meaning of the word shivaree.

As for poetry, I read an assortment of collections that included Margaret Gibson‘s Memories of the Future: The Daybooks of Tina Modotti, Jen Kindbom’s chapbook A Note on the Door, and several current issues of literary journals like Poet Lore and the inaugural issue of Haven.

I think I swam in words this summer.

July News

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I thought I’d take a quick break from the wonderful quiet of my writer’s residency at Prairie Center of the Arts, which I luckily was able to extend into August by the generous founders of PCA. Upon arrival, I realized, unexpectedly, that I had some research opportunities in the area. Though it’s too soon to tell what I’m working on, it is too much fun! In other PCA news, fantastic artist Kate Johnson has been posting interviews of other residents, such as Allison Lacher and Lauren Scanlon. More interviews to follow.

This month Poet Lore, The Adroit Journal, and Insolent Aardvark accepted new poems of mine. A big thanks to the editors! I have a funny story about Poet Lore that I thought I’d pass along. Since finishing my dissertation on Matilda Fletcher, I’ve been doing research on other ancestors. One of them was a Jessie Wiseman Gibbs, Matilda’s stepdaughter, who published the collection of poetry OVERTONES in 1913. In looking at her acknowledgements page, Jessie lists Poet Lore. I thought that was great! In the 1910s Poet Lore published my great-great-great-aunt and a hundred years later in the 2010s Poet Lore has published my poems.

In teaching news, I’ll be teaching classes this year in the English Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Future students, you’re in for some fun essay assignments and great texts to read. Speaking of teaching, in uber-smart husband news, there’s a piece on UNL news on his Distinguished Educator Award and an article in his hometown newspaper the Bloomfield Democrat. Here’s his video.

Apple Distinguished Educator from adam wagler on Vimeo.

Poetry at the Moon

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I’m reading tonight with the talented poet Michelle Menting at Poetry on the Moon at Crescent Moon, 7 p.m., May 9, 2011 (140 N 8th St #10, Lincoln, NE 68508). I’ll be reading from Branding Girls and by request (I promised R. I would), new poems from my dissertation on Matilda Fletcher. Here’s a longer clip from my reading last week at Tuesdays with Writers. (It’s a little shaky at the beginning).

Tonight, I’ll read poems I’ve never before read aloud from Branding Girls. I hope you’ll be there.

Women’s Week displays Matilda poems

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This is late in coming, so I apologize. In early March I submitted three poems (one on the clairvoyant Victoria Woodhull, another on Grant, and a third on Susan B.) from my dissertation on Matilda Fletcher to be included in the “Visions of Sisterhood” display for Women’s Week in the Rotunda Gallery at the  Nebraska Union, March 14-18, 2011. The Women’s Center/Gender Programs work so tirelessly to produce wonderful events like Women’s Week, that I’m remiss to to say that I did not post about all they had organized. That being said, yesterday I received a wonderful thank you note from them thanking me for my poems and congratulating me for being awarded the Susan Atefact Peckham Fellowship in poetry. I just want to say, thank you for including my poems! I felt honored to be part of such an important event during women’s history month. I think, as her scion, Matilda would’ve been glad to know that nearly 140 years after her lionized speech to “Farmers’ Wives and Daughters” in the 1873 Nebraska State Fair here in Lincoln, she’s was remembered in 2011.

readings and news

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I have two up and coming readings where I hope to see you. On May 3rd at 7 p.m I will be reading in the Tuesdays with Writers series at the South Mill (48th & Prescott). I’ll read from two recent anthologies from Unhook Press and from Branding Girls. I’m very excited to join other contributors in this reading Unhook Press set up. I’m also reading at Poetry on the Moon at Crescent Moon, 7 p.m., May 9, 2011 (140 N 8th St #10). I’ll read from Branding Girls.

In other news, I have a poems in the current issue of Blue Unicorn and in the anthology Flashlight Memories.

A little earlier this month, I made a poster for the UNL Research Fair for Branding Girls. The fair was super fun. I got to speak to friends and colleagues, as well as talk about my new collection of poetry from Finishing Line Press. Dr. Ruth Brown, who teaches a wonderful course this term (that I would love to take if I was an undergrad) called Mad Men Revisited, even stopped by to take my picture.

What else? Well, if you happen to be at the Devaney Center at 3pm May 6th, I’m getting my PhD that day. I’ve got my outfit picked out and everything.

a reading, a fellowship, and a publication or two

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This past Saturday, April 9 at 9 a.m., I read from my dissertation at the Rawley Conference. Dr. Jeannette Jones was the commenter for my panel. She gave me the best critical reading of and offered the most astute questions for my work on the suffragist, lecturer, and poet, Matilda Fletcher, that I’ve yet to have at a conference. It was so nice to be asked such smart questions from such a great scholar. Wow. Thanks, Dr. Jones!

Upcoming reading-wise, I’ve been awarded the Susan Atefact Peckham Fellowship in poetry for UNL. Yeah! There’s an award reading in Bailey Library (228 Andrews Hall) on April 27 from 3-4 p.m. I’ll be reading more on Matilda Fletcher. The award ceremony is April 29 at 3 p.m. I hope you’ll be there!

Finally, I have a poem in the current issue of Blue Collar Review and a poem in the anthology Knocking at the Door, edited by Lisa Sisler and Lea C. Deschenes (Birch Bench Press, 2011).

Whoever said April was the cruelest month? That guy, something Prufrock, he’s wrong.

news & a workshop

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Poemeleon has a wonderful series of interviews by Cati Porter called “The Habitual Poet” about reading and writing poetry which includes poets Diane Lockward, Jeannine Hall Gailey, and Martha Silano. I’m up as installment #54 “The Habitual Poet: Laura Madeline Wiseman.” Yeah!

I also have a poem in Labletter and this Saturday I’m off to Fargo, North Dakota to give a reading at 3:15 p.m. on March 26 of poetry at Red River Graduate Student Conference at the Memorial Union at  North Dakota State University. I’ll be reading from my dissertation on Matilda Fletcher and maybe a few poems from Branding Girls. I hope to see you there!

And I must say a few words about the wonderful master workshop I took with Alicia Ostriker during the last two weeks. I haven’t taken a workshop in a couple of years. It was so nice to get feedback on brand new poems from Alicia and from the newer poets in the program and to read their exciting work. Alicia gave us five assignments and we were to write a fresh poem based on the assignment, sometimes as quickly as overnight! It felt a little bit like poetry boot-camp and required a bit of mettle and diligence, but such a nice way to stretch into new styles and themes and reread old favorite poets like Whitman, Ginsberg, Oliver, Sexton, Grahn, Karr, Levertov, Dickinson, H.D., and Clifton. It was so good to learn from Alicia, to hear her candor, generosity, and insight.

Here was the first assignment (if you’re up for it):

1) write a poem emulating the Wang Wei poem below: 8 lines max, each line containing at least one verb, one or more containing two verbs, the final line containing three verbs. The poem is centered on a place. It will have no more than one adjective.

Villa on Zhongnan Mountain,” by Wang Wei

 

In my middle years I came to much love the Way
and late made my home by South Mountain’s edge.

 

When the mood comes upon me, I go off alone,
and have glorious moments all to myself.

 

I walk to the point where a stream ends,
and sitting, watch when the clouds rise.

By chance I meet old men in the woods;
we laugh and chat, no fixed time to turn home.

 

Wang Wei’s “Villa on Zhongnan Mountain” from An Anthology of Chinese Literature, Stephen Owen, ed. and trans. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996) p. 390.