poetry

Poetry Month Celebration

City Lights Bookstore will host four poets on Saturday, April 13th at 3 p.m. to celebrate National Poetry Month.

Dee Stribling writes poetry and prose primarily around rural landscape and culture. She is the current Poet Laureate of Hillsborough, N.C. Dee will be reading from her chapbooks, Just Down the Road and Appalachian Picture Book.

Kim Blum-Hyclak makes her home and her garden in Lancaster, SC, but her roots remain in Ohio. She writes an eclectic mix of poetry and prose, with grace and beauty being the common thread. Kim will be reading from her poetry book, In the Garden of Life and Death ~ A Mother and Daughter Walk.

Sue Dunlap lives in Walland, TN, in the foothills of the Southern Appalachians. She writes poetry and prose, mainly about the culture of her people. Sue will be reading from two collections of poetry: The Story Tender and Knead.

Laurie Wilcox-Meyer was born in Louisiana and now lives in Asheville, North Carolina.  While at Northwestern University and Florida State University she studied piano and music theory.  She worked as a counselor, facilitating parent-child communication and co-wrote a children’s book, Who’s Ms. Sand Dollar? A Visit With the School Counselor. Her chapbook, Circling Silence, was published in January 2018 by Finishing Line Press and her full-length book of poetry, Of Wilderness and Flight, FootHills Publishing, was published in March 2018. Laurie will be reading from two collections: Of Wilderness and Flight and Circling Silence.

To reserve copies of these books please call City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC at 828-586-9499.

Dana Wildsmith and Susan O’Dell Underwood will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, May 25th at 3 p.m. They will read from their latest collections of poetry, One Light and The Book of Awe, respectively.

Dana Wildsmith is the author of a novel, Jumping, and an environmental memoir, Back to Abnormal: Surviving With An Old Farm in the New South, which was a finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. She is also the author of five collections of poetry. Wildsmith has served as Artist-in-Residence for Grand Canyon National Park and for Everglades National Park. She lives with her family on an old farm in north Georgia and works as an English literacy instructor at Lanier Technical College.

Susan O’Dell Underwood is currently a Professor of English and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Carson-Newman University. In addition to The Book of Awe she has published two chapbooks, From and Love and Other Hungers.

Poets Beth Copeland and Tina Barr will read poems at City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, October 13th at 3 p.m. Beth serves as the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for Central North Carolina and teach creative writing at St. Andrews University. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She has written three full-length collections of poetry.

Tina Barr has six volumes of poetry and her work has appeared in American Book Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Atlanta Review, The Chattahoochee Review, The Crab Orchard Review, Kestrel, The Pisgah Review, Tar River Poetry, and Zone 3. Barr teaches in the Great Smokies Creative Writing Program out of University of North Carolina at Asheville. For more information please call City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC at 828-586-9499.

Poets Catherine Carter, Mary Ricketson, and Joan Howard will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, September 15th at 3 p.m.  Catherine Carter has written three collections of poetry and directs the English Education program at Western Carolina University. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Orion, Ploughshares, Cider Press Review, Cortland Review, North Carolina Literary Review, and Best American Poetry 2009, among others.

Mary Ricketson of Murphy NC, has been writing poetry for 20 years; to satisfy a hunger, to taste life down to the very last drop. She is inspired by nature and her work as a mental health counselor. Her poetry has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, and the anthologies, Lights in the Mountains, and Echoes Across the Blue Ridge. Her two collections are Freeing Jonah, and her chapbook I Hear the River Call My Name.

Joan Howard is a retired teacher who lives in Hiawassee and Athens GA.  Her poetry has been published in Poem, The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry, the Aurorean, Lucid Rhythms, Victorian Violet, The Wayfarer, The Deronda Review and other literary journals.She has two books: Death and Empathy: My Sister Web and Jack, Love and the Daily Grail.

Asheville poet, Alida Woods will read from her collection on Friday, July 20th at 6:30 p.m. at City Lights Bookstore. “Disturbing Borders is filled with wonder(s). This is a collection of unique homecomings in which “borders” take on the many expectations both made manifest and broken, and promises reknit into stronger fabrics. The reader follows happily through literal and figurative landscapes of shadowy tints that only Alida Woods could create,” said Katherine Soniat, author of Bright Stranger.

A native of New England, Alida Woods lives in Asheville, North Carolina. She has spent her life among school children as a teacher, school principal, and mentor. Her poems have appeared in The Avocet, The Great Smokies Review, The Westward Quarterly, Front Porch, and The Amsterdam Quarterly.

Franklin native and resident, Merrilee Bordeaux will read her poetry on Saturday, June 16th at 3 p.m. Her collection, A Song of Life and Other Poems focuses on fond memories and family.

Maura Finn will visit City Lights Bookstore on Friday, May 4th at 6:30 p.m. She will present her bilingual poetry collection, Architect of the Divine.  The book is a journey through the heart, restoring it and bringing us back to the love that we are. The poems have the power to transform, uplift, inspire and encourage. They can be used as a map, as medicine, or as meditation.  For those who are called to receive this medicine, this universal story of awakening and heart healing is waiting to be told. 

Robert Lee Kendrick will return to City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, May 12th at 3 p.m. He will read from his new collection of poetry, What Once Burst with Brilliance.  His poems have been featured in Tar River Poetry, Xavier Review, Louisiana Literature, South Carolina Review, Kestrel, The Cape Rock, The James Dickey Review, The San Pedro River Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and The Main Street Rag. His first chapbook, Winterskin, was published by Main Street Rag in 2016.

Poet and former Haywood County journalist and teacher Michael Beadle will be reading from his latest poetry collection, Primer, at City Lights Bookstore in on Saturday, November 11th, at 3 p.m. The book features poems about childhood and family, discovery and disappointment, triumph and heartbreak. Primer was a national finalist in the 2016 Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Contest, sponsored by Main Street Rag. Bowers, a former NC Poet Laureate who served as the judge for

the contest, writes, “With courage and a kid’s heart, Michael Beadle brings to life the rites of passage of a small-town boy inching toward the threshold of adulthood.” Beadle is the author or co-author of four books on Haywood County history, including the local history Arcadia series books Waynesville, Haywood County and  Canton. A former reporter with The Mountaineer and Smoky Mountain News, Beadle  was active in the Haywood County arts community for nearly two decades, performing poetry at downtown Waynesville festivals, acting on stage at Haywood

Arts Regional Theatre, emceeing events at Folkmoot festivals and teaching creative writing courses through Haywood Community College.

As a writer-in-residence based in Raleigh, he teaches poetry and creative writing workshops throughout the state and serves as the director of the NC Poetry Society’s student contests and the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poets Series. To reserve copies of Primer please call City Lights Bookstore at 828-586-9499.

M. Scott Douglass will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, October 21st at 3 p.m. to read from his new collection of poetry, Just Passing Through. The author of four other collections of poetry, Douglass is also the managing editor and book designer for Main Street Rag, the publishing company he helped found in 1996. His poetry has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Iodine Poetry Journal, Midwest Review, North American Review and others. To reserve copies of Just Passing Through please call City Lights Bookstore at 828-586-9499.