The poet Mary Oliver passed away on January 17, 2019. A panel of writers come together to celebrate her life, work, and legacy. Panelists include Sally Bittner Bonn, Jon Palzer, Kitty Jospe, and Bart White. We also hear tributes from poets Donna Vorrayer, Willa Carroll, and Elaine Fletcher Chapman.
On the Panelists:
Sally Bittner Bonn now mostly writes creative nonfiction, but came to writing through poetry, and Mary Oliver was one of her first favorite poets. Sally serves as the Director of Youth Education at Writers & Books.
Kitty Jospé loves to study words in all languages and especially admires good use of them in poetry. After retiring from teaching French literature, she received her MFA in creative writing poetry and for the last 11 years leads weekly poetry appreciation classes. Docent at the Memorial Art Gallery, she enjoys the connection between art and word.
Tribute Contributors:
Willa Carroll is the author of Nerve Chorus (The Word Works, September 2018). A finalist for The Georgia Poetry Prize, she was the winner of The TQ7 Poetry Prize, and her poem “No Final Curtain” won First Place in Narrative’s Third Annual Poetry Contest. Video readings of her poems were featured in Narrative Outloud and Tuesday; A Reading Project. Carroll has a BA and MFA from Bennington College and has taught at universities, writing centers, and public schools. A former experimental dancer and actor, she has collaborated with numerous performers and artists, including text-based projects with her filmmaker husband. She lives in NYC.
Elaine Fletcher Chapman (formerly Elaine Walters McFerron) lives on the West side of the Chesapeake Bay. She holds an MFA from The Bennington Writing Seminars, Bennington College where she has worked on the staff since 1999. She founded The Writer's Studio where she teaches poetry and nonfiction, provides editing services and organizes poetry readings and writing retreats. Her poems have been published in The Tishman Review, The EcoTheo Review, The Cortland Review, Connotation, The Sun, Calyx, Poet Lore, 5AM, Salamander, and others. She was guest blogger on The Best American Poetry Blog. Green River Press published her letterpress chapbook, Double Solitude. She writes non-fiction as well as poetry.
For further inquiry: www.elainefletcherchapman.com
Donna Vorreyer is the author of two full-length collections of poetry: Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (Sundress Publications, 2016) and A House of Many Windows (Sundress Publications, 2013), as well as eight chapbooks: The Girl (2017,Porkbelly Press), Tinder, Smolder, Bones and Snow (2016, dancing girl press), Encantado, Illustrated by Matt Kish (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2015), We Build Houses of Our Bodies (dancing girl press, 2013), The Imagined Life of A Pioneer Wife (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2013), Ordering the Hours (Maverick Duck Press, 2012), Come Out, Virginia (Naked Mannequin Press, 2011), and Womb/Seed/Fruit (Finishing Line Press, 2010).
She currently serves as a staff reviewer for the journal Stirring: A Literary Collection and Rhino Reviews. Her poetry, fiction, and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Sugar House Review, Diode, Waxwing, Juxtaprose, Poet Lore, Border Crossings, Harpur Palate, and Quarterly West, and anthologies such as A Face to Meet the Faces (2013) and New Poetry from the Midwest (2015). Although she does not have an MFA, she gets an education daily in her life as a middle school English teacher.