Impossible, improbable, and infinitely full

It’ll be Shenandoah‘s 75th anniversary in 2025 and celebrations are beginning. First up, an exhibition at W&L’s Leyburn Library curated by Editor in Chief Beth Staples and students. It features precious and startling items from the archive. For example, poems and letters from Langston Hughes and E. E. Cummings are on display, and, more unusually, a poem in Middle English by J. R. R. Tolkien in honor of W. H. Auden–not to mention letters from Flannery O’Connor, poetry critic Hugh Kenner, and William Faulkner remarking that “I may be a snob, but I’m not literary.” I honestly think some of the new-on-the-scene poets I’ve had the honor of choosing for publication will be big names, too, but mostly I haven’t solicited work from current stars. What comes in during regular submissions is just so GOOD. On that note, we have an endowed prize ($1000 plus publication) for Virginia poets that opens for free submissions Oct. 15-30th. You just have to have lived in Virginia for 2+ years at any point in your life. Tim Seibles will be the judge.

Speaking of distinguished Shenandoah poets, I’m reading with Heid E. Erdrich, Minnesota’s new Poet Laureate, this week, AND the wonderful Athena Kildegaard, at Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis this week: 10/10, 7 pm. (If you’re able to go, please register here so they know how many seats to put out–but it’s free and the store will have standing room for drop-ins.) Our brief fall break is nearly here so we’re flying out for the reading, some museum time, and a visit with old friends who recently moved to Rochester MN.

Academic and artistic life have been a whirlwind, as is usual this time of year, but luckily there’s been lots of art in the mix. On Tuesday Rena Priest gave an inspiring reading on campus. Wednesday my spouse and his collaborator talked about their new book, Revising Reality. On Thursday a colleague, Emma Steinkraus, delivered a fascinating artist’s talk about a new campus exhibit of women botanical artists, “Impossible Gardens,” and we drove to Charlottesville on Friday to see another exhibit by a friend, painter Carolyn Capps: “The Ocean: Vastly Empty, Infinitely Full.” A LOT, but I wouldn’t have missed any of it.

This weekend was mostly grading, but I also went to a panel put together by a new local arts organization, MidMountain, about murder ballads and the southern gothic–there’s a linked concert on 10/12 that I’ll miss. I need to tip life balance back a few degrees toward resting-thinking-writing time, but teaching and art eruptions aside, when you’re closing in on a book launch, the to-do list is long. I did see a gorgeous cover design for Mycocosmic this week and spend many hours on the second round of interior proofs, so the big reveal and digital ARCs are coming soon.

Improbably, my AWP proposal was actually accepted–only 23% of the 1597 (!?) were–a bit of bright news. Meanwhile, I’ll be at the ALSCW conference in DC Oct 17-19th, so please let me know if you will, too. Then a Zoom reading with Writers Room Boston on Oct 22nd, 7:30 pm Eastern–details forthcoming. I’ll leave you with more from the Shenandoah exhibit: the editors’ cartoon portraits, an interactive puzzle, and some broadsides of Shenandoah poems by Samyak Shertok and Mary Oliver, two of several designed for this occasion. Riches, I say!

The news is hard right now–war, election fear, catastrophic flooding not far from here–but as Rena said, poetry can be a “secret medicine,” reminding us that we’re all connected. I’m grateful that even in my small town, art is so abundant.