Asheville Wordfest 2010
Sponsors
ASHEVILLE WORDFEST MAY 5 - MAY 8, 2010
Asheville's free poetry festival in downtown Asheville, NC.
Come to live readings or watch it on webcast here.
“THE WHOLE WEEKEND WAS TRANSFORMATIVE FOR ME” - audience member at Asheville Wordfest 2008
2010 Live Video
A Note From The Director
Wordfest's mission is to present poetry as a form of citizen journalism, addressing personal and global issues as a supplement to media. With this intention at its heart, Asheville Wordfest 2010 explores the notion of borderlands--these ideological spaces where beliefs, lifestyles, cultural heritage, passions and politics intersect, connecting us in more ways than we are divided. As one of the most diverse poetry festivals in the country, Asheville Wordfest 2010 once again features poets representative of a variety of cultural and aesthetic contexts, furthering the exploration of poetry as a unifying force within a diverse world. more from poet Laura Hope-Gill
Welcome to Wordfest 2010 from Laura Hope-Gill on Vimeo.
Three Poetic Marriages: a talk and workshop by poet David Whyte
www.mahec.net/media/brochures/mh050810.pdf
This year: The 1st Annual Blue Ridge Parkway Poetry Contest
Celebrate the Parkway in wild wonderful (or quiet meditative!) poetry.
Submit poem to poetrycontest@ashevillewordfest.org and $5-per-poem entry fee through the website's Paypal link at www.ashevillewordfest.org. Keith Flynn, Glenis Redmond, Pat Riviere-Seel judge. Please include age (if under 20), name and your contact info so we can find you. Win up to $200.00 for first place poem in adult and youth category. Win gift cards if you're a child. Winners will read at Wordfest!
Blue Ridge Parkway Chapbook: 30 poems will be selected for the Blue Ridge Parkway Poetry Chapbook.
If you wish to submit ONLY to the chapbook, simply specify so at the top of your poem. Please donate anyway.
This event is sponsored by The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation. www.theblueridgeparkwayfoundation.org
Deadline: Shakespeare's Birthday (April 23rd). You may enter as many poems as you like, just please pay the $5.00 entry fee for each poem. Poems can be any style, any length. Include, please, the poem in the body of the email. We won't open attachments. For more information, email: poetrycontest@ashevillewordfest.org
The Poets
Mark Doty, the only American poet to have won Great Britain's T. S. Eliot Prize, is the author of six books of poems. The first, Turtle, Swan, appeared in 1987. His third collection, My Alexandria (1993), received both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Since then he has published Atlantis (1995); Sweet Machine (1998); Source (2001); and the critically acclaimed volume of poems, School of the Arts (2005), HarperCollins. In 2008, Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems was published, and won the National Book Award for 2008. He is the author of three memoirs: Heaven's Coast (1996), Firebird (1999), and... learn more
The work of Flying Words Project represents a vital contribution to the growing field of ASL performance. While many ASL poets are content to produce interesting, but predictable poems,the work of ASL poet Peter Cook and his hearing poet collaborator Kenny Lerner, consistently experiment with the possibilities of poetic language. They perceptively recognize and exploit the cinematic aspects of ASL in ways that often astound the viewer. At the same time, they incorporate some of the most ancient aspects of poetry--its embodied rhythms. Both the modern and ancient aspects of their poetry work together to produce an unforgettable... learn more
Linda Hogan, a Chickasaw poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and activist, is widely considered to be one of the most influential and provocative Native American figures in the contemporary American literary landscape, and is an internationally recognized public speaker. Her most recent books are the poetry collection, Rounding the Human Corners (Coffee House Press, 2008), and the novel, People of the Whale (Norton, 2008). Her other books include the novels Mean Spirit, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Oklahoma Book Award, the Mountains and Plains Book Award; Solar Storms, a finalist for the International Impact Award... learn more
David Whyte grew up with a strong, imaginative influence from his Irish mother among the hills and valleys of his father’s Yorkshire. He now makes his home, with his family, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
The author of six books of poetry and three books of prose, David Whyte holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes the Amazon and the Himalaya. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, lectures and... learn more
Natasha Trethewey is author of Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin), for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize; Bellocq’s Ophelia (Graywolf, 2002) which was named a Notable Book for 2003 by the American Library Association; and Domestic Work (Graywolf, 2000). She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Her poems have appeared in such journals and anthologies as American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review... learn more
Glenis Redmond is poet, educator, performer, and counselor rolled into one passionate soul. She presents her poetry in performances that cause the printed word to spring from the page and dance, sing, weep, and laugh.
Glenis tells stories with poetry - from her life, her family, her African-American heritage, and her sensitive observations of the world around her - inspiring audiences of all ages. In her workshops and performances, she encourages participants to know themselves and their origin, thereby finding their own inspiration and their own stories.
Glenis began writing poetry at the age of... learn more
Raúl Zurita, winner of the Chilean National Poetry Prize, is arguably the most powerful poetic voice in Latin America today. His compelling rhythms combine epic and lyric tones, public and most intimate themes, grief and joy. Despite having been arrested and tortured under the Pinochet dictatorship, Zurita’s prevailing attitude in his Dantesque trilogy Purgatoi (Purgatory), Anteparaíso (Anteparadise), and La Vida Nueva (The New Life) is a deep love for everything and everybody in the world. His work is part of a revolution in poetic language that began in the 1970s and sought to find new forms of expression, radically different from those of... learn more
Nickole Brown is a poet and fiction writer. She graduated from the M.F.A. Program for Creative Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts in January 2003. She has received grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She graduated summa cum laude from University of Louisville, studied English Literature at Oxford University as an English Speaking Union Scholar, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson in 1997. She has also served as the Program Coordinator for the VCFA writing residency in Slovenia and as Publicity Consultant for the Palm Beach... learn more
Holly Iglesias is a poet, translator and author of Souvenirs of a Shrunken World, Hands-on Saints, and Boxing Inside the Box: Women’s Prose Poetry. She teaches in the Master of Liberal Arts Program at the University of North Carolina-Asheville and has received fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, the Edward Albee Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her next collection, Angles of Approach, is forthcoming from White Pine Press in fall, 2010. learn more
Katherine Soniat's fifth collection of poems, The Swing Girl, is forthcoming from Louisiana State University Press in 2011 and A Raft, A Boat, A Bridge, from Dream Horse Press in 2012. A Shared Life won the Iowa Poetry Prize given by the University of Iowa Press, and a Virginia Prize for Poetry, selected by Mary Oliver. Her fourth collection Alluvial, published by Bucknell University Press, was a finalist for The Library of Virginia Center for the Book Award. The Fire Setters is available through the Web del Sol’s Online Chapbook Series and Notes of Departure was the recipient of the Camden Poetry Prize given by the Walt Whitman Center for... learn more
Cathy Smith Bowers was born and reared, one of six children, in the small mill town of Lancaster, SC. She received her BA and MAT in English at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. She went on to do graduate work in Modern British Poetry at Oxford University in England. Cathy Smith Bowers’ poems have appeared widely in publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and The Kenyon Review. She is a winner of The General Electric Award for Younger Writers, recipient of a South Carolina Poetry Fellowship, and winner of The South Carolina Arts Commission Fiction Project. She served for many... learn more
Keith Flynn is the author of five books, including four collections of poetry: The Talking Drum (1991), The Book of Monsters (1994), The Lost Sea (2000), and The Golden Ratio (Iris Press, 2007), and a collection of essays, entitled The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing (Writer's Digest Books, 2007). From 1987-1998, he was lyricist and lead singer for the nationally acclaimed rock band, The Crystal Zoo, which produced three albums: Swimming Through Lake Eerie (1992), Pouch (1996), and the spoken-word and music compilation, Nervous Splendor (Animal Records, 2003). His poetry has appeared in many journals and... learn more
Danny Bernstein is a hiker, hike leader for the Carolina Mountain Club, and outdoor writer. Her two guidebooks Hiking the Carolina Mountains (2007) and Hiking North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Heritage (2009) were published by Milestone Press. She writes for regional magazines including Mountain Xpress and Smoky Mountain Living and blogs about the outdoors at www.hikertohiker.com. Danny has hiked the whole Appalachian Trail, all the trails in the Smokies and the South Beyond 6000. Her mission is to get people out of their cars and hiking.... learn more
John Hoppenthaler books of poetry are Lives of Water (2003) and Anticipate the Coming Reservoir (2008), both titles from Carnegie Mellon University Press. His poetry appears in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Southern Review, Barrow Street, Laurel Review, West Branch, the anthologies Blooming through the Ashes: An International Anthology on Violence and the Human Spirit, Poetry Calendar, September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond, Chance of a Ghost, and elsewhere. His essays, interviews, and reviews appear in Making Poems: Forty Poems with Commentary by the Poets (SUNY Press, 2010).... learn more
Kathryn Stripling Byer recently ended her term as NC's first woman Poet Laureate. Her collections include Wildwood Flower, the Lamont Poetry Selection from the Academy of American Poets, chosen by Lucille Clifton, Jorie Graham, and Robert Morgan; Black Shawl, Brockman -Campbell Award, chosen by Billy Collins; and Catching Light, Southern Independent Bookseller's Alliance Book of the Year in Poetry. Her most recent, Coming to Rest, earned the Hanes Poetry Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. A collaborative chapbook with Penelope Scambly Schott, Aretha's Hat, appeared from Ash Creek Press in Portland, Oregon. New work has appeared... learn more
Vixi Jil Glenn is a storyteller and poet from Asheville, North Carolina. Her stories draw on ancient legends, Jack Tales and create a delightful mix of Appalachian, Celtic and Scandinavian folklore. She has performed for the YMCA, Riverlink and other organizations. A student of renowned Folkteller Connie Regan Blake, VixiJil reaches into the realms of faeryland and memory as well as her family's rich history of storytelling for her material. Musical, lively and engaging, VixiJil brings the mountains to life with her rhymes and tales.... learn more
Donate and Sponsor a Poet
Make a contribution towards Festival Expenses (supplies, publicity, space rental, website, etc.)
in lump sum format using the PayPal secure server by clicking below:
If you prefer to mail your tax-deductible donation,
please make your check payable to Asheville Wordfest/ MAIN and send to:
Asheville Wordfest
c/o Laura Hope-Gill
101 Christ School Road
Arden, NC 28704
This project is made possible in part by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.   Click here for submission guidelines and more information on the Linda Flowers Literary Award. |