Advice from Poet Galway Kinnell

[photos by Mary Ellen Reis, courtesy St. Johnsbury Academy]
More than a hundred people crowded into the Grace Stuart Orcutt Library (St. Johnsbury Academy) this afternoon to hear Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and neighbor Galway Kinnell read and talk about his poetry. It was a masterful reading, with poems and "stories" about them adeptly selected for the group of mostly high school students. Afterward, I overheard a Creative Writing teacher introduce a promising young author to the poet and ask him for advice.

Kinnell replied: "Read, read, and read. And write, write, and write. In other words, give it everything you've got."



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Short bit of good news, especially for those waiting for another book from Vermont poet and translator Jody Gladding -- who took the Yale Younger Poets prize for her collection STONE CROP, followed by the chapbook ARTICHOKE and the fine press collection THE MOON ROSE: Gladding mentioned today that her next book has been accepted for publication early in 2009. Hurrah! More details later.
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And one more tidbit: James Hoch has accepted the position of Resident Poet at The Frsot Place for summer 2008 (Jody Gladding took it in 2007, Rob Farnsworth in 2006, Major Jackson in 2005). Bear in mind that this position is designed to replicate the situation that Robert Frost lived through while staying in the house that's now The Frsot Place: some publication but not yet reknown in the US, and ripe for generating powerful fresh work during concentrated time on the New Hampshire hillside. More on Hoch and his work later, too.