WILSON, N.C. — The 17th annual Barton College Creative Writing Symposium is pleased to present “Selected Poets.” The event is scheduled for Monday, April 1, and will feature poets Joseph Bathanti, Debra Kaufman, and Al Maginnes. All sessions will be held in The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center at no charge, and the public is invited to attend any or all of these sessions.
The program will include two afternoon hour-long sessions and an evening session. Session I, titled “Selected Poets: A Conversation,” will begin at 2 p.m. and Session II, titled “The Ecological Dimension,” featuring members of Dr. Jim Clark’s Ecopoetry Class, will begin at 3:30 p.m.
At 7:30 p.m., the day will conclude with an Evening Session titled “Selected Poets, A Reading.”
Joseph Bathanti, Poet Laureate of North Carolina, is a Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, where he also serves as Writer-in-Residence for the University’s Watauga Global Community and Director of Writing in the Field. Bathanti has published seven books of poems, including “Communion Partners,” “Anson County,” “The Feast of All Saints,” “This Metal” (winner of the 1997 Oscar Arnold Young Award from The North Carolina Poetry Council), “Land of Amnesia,” “Restoring Sacred Art” (winner of the 2010 Roanoke Chowan Prize from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association), and “Sonnets of the Cross.” His new book of poems, “Concertina,” is forthcoming from Mercer University Press.
Debra Kaufman has worked as a detasseler, waitress, newspaper correspondent, copyeditor, and as the journal’s editorial manager at Duke University Press. She is a past president of the Board of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, arts education committee chair of the Alamance County Arts Council, and editor of “Pinesong,” the North Carolina Poetry Society’s annual publication of prize-winning poems. Kaufman’s books of poems include “The Next Moment,” “Moon Mirror Whiskey Wind,” “A Certain Light,” “Still Live Burning” (winner of the Kinloch Rivers Poetry Competition of the South Carolina Poetry Society), and “Family of Strangers.” Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, and in the anthologies “Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont,” “. . . and love . . .,” “The Sound of Poets Cooking,” “Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry,” and “The Art and Craft of Poetry.”
Al Maginnes lives in Raleigh and teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at Wake Technical Community College. He has published five full-length poetry collections including “Taking Up Our Daily Tools,” “The Light in Our Houses” (winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Award), “Film History,” “Ghost Alphabet” (winner of the 2007 White Pine Poetry Press Prize), and “Inventing Constellations.” Maginnes has also published four chapbooks, including “Between States” and “Greatest Hits 1987-2010.” His poems appear regularly in literary journals such as “Poetry,” “Georgia Review,” “Shenandoah,” “Antioch Review,” “New England Review,” “Prairie Schooner,” and “Tar River Poetry.” Maginnes is a past recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Grant Award.
This event is sponsored by the Department of English, Modern Languages and Religion, and The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center. For additional information about the Creative Writing Symposium, contact Dr. James A. Clark, the Elizabeth H. Jordan Chair of Southern Literature, chair of the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Religion, and director of the Creative Writing Symposium, at 252-399-6450 or jclark@barton.edu.
END