The new VERVE is out, with a well-written piece on Western North Carolina women poets, by Jess McCuan. Four of them are the cover girls: Cathy Smith Bowers, Glenis Redmond, Pat Riviere Seel, and Emoke B'racz. I couldn't make it over to Hendersonville for the photo shoot, alas. My daughter Corinna served as poet's photographer for me. Cathy, Glenis, and Pat have been featured already on our ncarts.org website. Emoke will be coming up soon.
Here's how the article begins:
"Western North Carolina claims its share of famous writers. Thomas Wolfe, Charles Frazier and Carl Sandburg are among the most well known (though Sandburg was born in Illinois and only moved to Flat Rock late in life). For years, few on the list of nationally known WNC authors were women and even fewer were female poets. North Carolina governors have appointed state poet laureates since 1935, and for 70 years they chose men—many of whom lived or taught in the Piedmont or on the coast. In its 24 years of operation, Black Mountain College attracted important avant-garde poets like Charles Olson, Robert Creeley and Denise Levertov, but none were from the area and few stayed after the school shut down in 1957."
To find out what happened to the literary scene here in the mountains, go to vervemag.com and read the rest of the essay. Take a look at the rest of the magazine, too. Maybe you'll want to have your own copy of it.
(photo by Corinna Byer)
