Christian McEwen

Christian's essay, "Child Time" (an excerpt from her current manuscript, ORDINARY JOY) can now be found at the Community Works Journal. See http:www.communityworksjournal.org

Another excerpt, "Silence is Goldish Blue" will appear in the summer issue of the Buddhist magazine, Mindfulness Bell.

Smith College Poetry Interviews ~An Audio Archive of Conversations with Poets~

The Poetry Center at Smith College reading series, now in its 13th year, has hosted over 150 poets, representing the fabulous range of what’s being written today by people of all ages, races, genders, styles, and sensibilities, including over a dozen Pulitzer Prize-winners and five Poets Laureate, as well as poets relatively unknown here, whose work is translated from Welsh, Basque, Spanish, Irish, Slovenian, Arabic, Korean, and Serbo-Croatian. These writers have read to audiences ranging from 70 to 1,700.

Free and open to the public, the readings focus on listening to the poems in the poet’s voice; to maximize this experience, we don’t include a time for questions. DVD’s of most all the readings are available for viewing in Neilson Library. While poets who read in our series often hold an informal afternoon Q&A or visit Smith College classes, those sessions are purposely kept small and intimate, open only to the college community, and, in an effort to maintain informality and spontaneity, are never taped.

An audio archive of interviews with visiting poets is a wonderful addition to what we offer current friends of poetry—and safeguard for future generations.

Beginning in Spring 2009, each visiting poet has been asked, as part of his/her stay in Northampton, to engage in a lively conversation concerning the basics of the poet’s biography, habitual writing practice, influences and development, as well as his or her sense of the contemporary poetry scene, and whatever else comes up in the course of conversation—a kind of equivalent to the Paris Review Interviews, with an equally wide range of themes and subject matter. The resulting audio recordings are held in the college archives, available free of charge to students, faculty, scholars, and members of the community.
Excerpts have been played on local radio station, WMUA, and at a later date will be transcribed and put together in book form.

Contact Information: Questions regarding this program may be addressed to the interviewer at ChristianMcEwen@aol.com, or to Ellen Doré Watson, Director of the Poetry Center, at ewatson@smith.edu or the Poetry Center Office, 413-585-4891.

LINKS:

Gwyneth Lewis:
http://www.writersvoice.net/2009/06/poet-gwyneth-lewis-and-marshall-jon-fisher/
Paul Muldoon:
http://www.writersvoice.net/2009/06/poet-paul-muldoon-and-drama-voices-in-conflict/