Fayetteville, Arkansas is roughly one thousand miles from the state of Virginia. But this week, with the annual Virginia Festival of the Book in session, we’ve been thinking about the incredible poetic connection between the two places.
The Virginia Festival of the Book brings readers and writers together for a five-day celebration of books, reading, literacy, and literary culture, and this year, three University of Arkansas Press poets will be reading and discussing their poetry.
George David Clark, whose debut collection Reveille won the 2015 Miller Williams Poetry Prize, earned his MFA from the University of Virginia. He will be reading along with other UVA MFA alumni on Friday, March 20th. Katherine Young’s collection Day of the Border Guards was a finalist for the 2014 Miller Williams Poetry Prize. Patrick Phillips’ collection Chattahooche was published by the UA Press in 2004 and won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He will be reading from his latest collection, Elegy for a Broken Machine, along with Young and Mary-Sherman Willis on Saturday, March 21.
R.T. Smith is a decorated poet and the editor of the literary magazine Shenandoah at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, where he is a writer in residence. He has won the Library of Virginia Book Award four times, and in 2013 won the prestigious Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry. The UA Press published his collection Outlaw Style in 2007, which is one of the books for which he won the Library of Virginia Poetry Award. Smith was a speaker at the Virginia Festival of the Book in 2007, 2009, and 2013.
Another winner of the Library of Virginia poetry award, and the Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry is David Wojahn. His collection of essays on poetry, Strange Good Fortune, was published by the UA Press in 2001. Wojahn was a speaker at the Virginia Festival for the Book in 2007 and 2011.
Elizabeth Hadaway, formerly an instructor at Virginia Commonwealth University and historical interpreter at Agecroft Hall in Richmond, Virginia, won the Library of Virginia Poetry Award for her UA Press collection Fire Baton in 2007. She was a speaker at the Virginia Festival for the Book in 2009.
Other UA Press poets with Virginia connections are Michelle Boisseau, who taught at Virginia Intermont College, Catherine MacDonald, who teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Steve Scafidi, who was born and raised in Virginia. Boisseau’s collection Trembling Air was published by the U of A Press in 2003 and her collection A Sunday in God-Years was published in 2009. She was a speaker at the Virginia Festival of the Book in 2010. MacDonald’s collection Rousing the Machinery won the 2012 Miller Williams Poetry Prize, and she was a speaker at the Virginia Festival of the Book that year. Scafidi’s collection To the Bramble and the Briar was the cowinner of the 2014 Miller Williams Poetry Prize.
Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum was a speaker at the 2014 Virginia Festival of the Book. His collection Ghost Gear was a finalist for the 2014 Miller Williams Poetry Prize.
As you can see, quite a connection! We look forward to seeing where the future of the Arkansas-Virginia poetry connection takes us.