“Outside of biomedicine, relationships lie at the core of healing—between people and their ancestors, between microcosm and macrocosm, between qualities and elements,” writes Eleni Stecopoulos in her new book, Dreaming in the Fault Zone: A Poetics of Healing. A poet, essayist, editor, critic, and UVA MFA alumna, Stecopoulos’ previous books include Visceral Poetics, a work […]
“Outside of biomedicine, relationships lie at the core of healing—between people and their ancestors, between microcosm and macrocosm, between qualities and elements,” writes Eleni Stecopoulos in her new book, Dreaming in the Fault Zone: A Poetics of Healing. A poet, essayist, editor, critic, and UVA MFA alumna, Stecopoulos’ previous books include Visceral Poetics, a work […]
“Poetry allows you to preserve a certain moment, a certain place. It’s giving voice to something that otherwise I would just carry around mutely,” says poet Annie Woodford, author of Where You Come From Is Gone and winner of the Weatherford Award for Best Books about Appalachia. “Then, when you think about economic systems or […]
By Cortney Phillips Meriwether When Gregory Orr first published The Blessing in 2002, he did so after years of reluctance. The memoir, which begins with a 12-year-old Orr accidentally shooting and killing his younger brother on a hunting trip, was understandably difficult to write. Yet, through the encouragement of his wife, he did write it—and […]
Most people avert their eyes when the world gets messy: they scrunch uncooperative hair into the safety of ballcaps, kick dust bunnies conveniently under couches, and dunk ugly memories into their mental trashbins. It’s unusual to meet someone who sits down with disorder, shakes its hand, and engages it in honest conversation. José Olivarez is […]
A confession: I’m not adequately prepared to discuss Peter Allen’s “Un-becoming” show at McGuffey Art Center with the level of insight both the artist and his art deserve. I certainly spent plenty of preparatory time and afforded the exhibition my contemplative attention. No, this is just a shortcoming of my own faculties—the same dearth that […]
Local poet and pediatrician Irène Mathieu has been a storyteller for as long as she can remember. Before she learned to write, she would observe her mother and narrate everything she did. “She found it super annoying,” Mathieu says with a laugh. Mathieu, who lived in Charlottesville for parts of her childhood, returned last July […]
Seventeen syllables. Seventeen syllables to say whatever you want, to say as much, or as little, as you’d like. Hell, you don’t even have to use all 17 syllables if you don’t need or want to, says poet and artist Raven Mack. That’s just the typical form of a Japanese haiku in the Western world: […]