GEORGIA POETRY SOCIETY: SERVING GEORGIA’S POETS SINCE 1979 Volume 30, Number 2: Summer 2008 DAVID BOTTOMS, POET LAUREATE OF GEORGIA FEATURED AT GEORGIA POETRY SOCIETY 118TH QUARTERLY MEETING Come enjoy another exciting Other program highlights include the ever-popular program on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at member readings. Dr. Robert Simon will read from his new Kennesaw State University (KSU). We book of poetry, Jill Jennings will provide a workshop and the thank Dr. Robert Simon, faculty member Dr. Robert Lynn will unveil the GPS 2008 anthology, The at KSU and to the Department of Foreign Reach of Song. Languages and the College of Humanities Simon is Assistant Professor of Spanish at KSU. He has and Social Sciences for their support. taught both Spanish and Portuguese languages and has It is our good fortune to have as our investigated the presence of Surrealism, Mysticism and featured reader, David Bottoms, Poet Laureate of Georgia. postmodernism in Contemporary Peninsular Literature. He Bottoms was born in Canton Georgia in 1949. His first book, is widely published in several journals (The Reach of Song, Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump, was selected by The American Poetry Journal and The New York Quarterly) Robert Penn Warren as winner of the 1979 Walt Whitman and has a book of poetry, New Poems from the Airplane and Award of the Academy of American Poets. Bottoms’ poems Graveyard. He explains his poetry as “an exploration of the have been published in a wide variety of magazines that intimate connection between love, death, and the languages includes The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris that harness and define me as both a poet and a scholar.” Review and Poetry, and more than four dozen anthologies Jennings has won top awards from several poetry and and textbooks. writers organizations. She is a retired journalist who served Bottoms has authored six other books of poetry: In a U- as editor of West Michigan Magazine, and as a regular Haul North of Damascus; Under the Vulture Tree; Armored columnist and reviewer for The Athens Observer, as well as Hearts: Selected and New Poems; Vagrant Grace; Oglethorpe’s Public Relations Director for two PBS affiliates. Her first full- Dream; and Waltzing through the Endtime; and two novels, length volume of poetry, The Poetry Alarm Clock, will be Any Cold Jordan and Easter Weekend. Other awards include available on August 1, 2008. She taught Latin and English in Levinson and the Frederick Bock prizes from Poetry the public schools, developed writing workshops for the magazine, the Boatwright Award from Shenandoah, an English portion of the SAT exam. Since her 2004 retirement, Ingram Merrill Award, and Award in Literature from the she devotes herself to writing and teaching writing American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and workshops, writing in both English and French. Jennings fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and makes her home in Woodstock GA with her husband, Paul the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Cheng. Bottoms has been interviewed on regional and national Hope to see you at the meeting. radio and television programs; he is featured in a half-hour segment of The Southern Voice, a five-part television Clela Reed, Vice President miniseries that profiles Southern writers. His work has been IN THIS ISSUE reviewed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Southern Living, The Southern Meeting Agenda; President’s Message 02 Review and The Observer (London) to name a few. He has GPS Poets; Reach of Song; NFSPS Convention Highlights 03 been Richard Hugo Poet-in-Residence at the University of Announcements; Open Mics/Conferences/Forums 04 Member News 05 Montana, Ferrol Sams Distinguished Writer at Mercer Poetry in the Schools Program 06 University. He currently holds the John B. and Elena Diaz- Lunch Order Form; Directions to KSU 07 Verson Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters at Map of KSU Campus 08 Georgia State University (Atlanta), and edits Five Points: A 2008 GPS Poetry Contests Guidelines 09-11 Journal of Art and Literature. Reach of Song Order Form 12 Georgia Poetry Society Page 1 of 12 Volume 30, Number 2: Summer 2008 AGENDA 117TH QUARTERLY GEORGIA POETRY SOCIETY MEETING 9:15 a.m. until 3 p.m. 9:15 a.m. Coffee and Registration. Member Reading Sign-up 9:45 a.m. Welcome and business (Nominating Committee) – GPS President Ron Self 10:00 a.m. Member Readings (poems from Reach of Song or others) 10:50 a.m. Break 11:00 a.m. Featured Poet: David Bottoms, Poet Laureate of Georgia 11:30 a.m. Q&A and Book Signing 11:45 a.m. Lunch 12:45 p.m. Unveiling of 2008 The Reach of Song: Dr. Robert Lynn Cover photo by Lee Reed, Athens, Georgia Presentation of Awards for Excellence Member Readings (ROS poems only) Passing of ROS Editorship to Dr. Tonette Long 2:00 p.m. Reading from his book, New Poems from the Airplane and Grave: Dr. Robert Simon 2:20 p.m. Workshop: Invention, or How to Get the Muse to Visit You: Jill Jennings 3:00 p.m. Adjournment and Distribution of 2008 The Reach of Song 3:10 p.m. Board Meeting MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT, RON SELF: FOR WANT OF A NAIL One of the chores that is at place at the quarterly meeting, your portion of the structure the same time one of the joys of is missing, the connection you could make and that ought to being president of this be there is not there, and we are all diminished by your organization is having to/getting absence. As Benjamin Franklin put it: “A little neglect may to come early for the quarterly breed great mischief…for want of nail the shoe was lost; for meetings, being one of the first want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse people to arrive at the meeting the rider was lost.” For want of you, a connection is lost. place to check it out, make sure And if this is true of our meeting room, it is also true of everything is in order and ready. the geography of our state. Georgia Poetry Society members This gives me the chance to are located across the state and beyond, but there are gaps, welcome our members as they vast wide-open spaces where there are no Georgia Poetry arrive and the opportunity to Society members and thus no Georgia Poetry Society. We watch what happens in the need you to fill in those some of those gaps, help us build a meeting room as we begin to bridge to and over those spaces, to connect the dots of our gather. widely scattered membership with new members in new The first few people, unless they already know each other, places throughout the state. migrate to distant corners of the room. Then as more people Imagine that the Georgia Poetry Society is a poem, and show up, they begin to fill in the gaps, and those sitting near we are all words or lines in that great poem. What happens someone else say hello, introduce themselves, and the distance when we remove a random word or line? What happens between them narrows and each person becomes a bridge when part of the poem disappears, is not there, doesn’t get connecting to others who then also say hello and introduce written at all? themselves, and pretty soon the room fills up and just about We all know someone who should be a member of the everybody is sitting next to or is connected to somebody else Georgia Poetry Society but isn’t. Do your part, invite them to somehow. join. Bring them with you to the next meeting. Don’t be the What this suggests to me is that each of us, every member missing nail. We need you to help us build new bridges. of the Georgia Poetry Society, is part of the bridge that connects us, has a role to play, a gap to fill, and when you are not in your Ron Self Georgia Poetry Society Page 2 of 12 Volume 30, Number 2: Summer 2008 MEET GPS POETS Fran Stewart is a resident of David C. Hightowerwas born into a Lawrenceville, Georgia. She says she household with roots in the Kentucky lives on the back side of Hog Mountain, mountains on his mother's side and the beside a creek with an assortment of north Georgia mountains on his father's side. rescued cats. He was raised on farms in the foothills of the Fran was introduced to poetry by Appalachians in Bartow County, Georgia. several phenomenal teachers inthe He became serious about poetry while seventh grade and high school. She serving in the army and continued to write enjoys a variety of poetic styles: during his years as an English teacher at sonnets, villanelles, free verse, Rockmart Middle School and at Cass High School where he was the depending on the subject and how the words flow. advisor for the yearbook, newspaper and literary magazine. David’s Fran is an author, freelance editor and public speaker. The poetry uses images of the Appalachians and nature to express the quote she lives by is"Healing the World through Teaching the universal themes of life. Power of Gratitude". She wrote The Biscuit McKee Mystery Series, His poems have been published in The Atlanta Review, The which includes: Orange as Marmalade; Yellow as Legal Pads; Lullwater Review, Artword, The Savannah Literary Journal, Wind Green as a Garden Hose; Blue as Blue Jeans; and Indigo as an Magazine, Literary House, Old Red Kimono, Goose River Anthology, and Iris - the 5th Biscuit McKee Mystery – to be published this fall.