Note: All addresses are for Indianapolis, unless otherwise stated.
If you know of a landmark, send its location to jl.kato@sbcglobal.net and place "Poetry landmark" in the title field. The landmark must be a poetry display or a marker that refers to a poet or his/her accomplishment. Last updated 9/3/15. New listing in the visual art section.
Cemetery
Crown Hill Cemetery, 700 W. 38th St.:Grave sites of James Whitcomb Riley, Etheridge Knight, Meredith Nicholson, and Sarah T. Bolton. Maps available at main office.(317) 925-3800 Museums and Homes Indiana Humanities, 1500 N. Delaware St., was the home of Meredith Nicholson. Info: (317) 638-1500 or http://indianahumanities.org/about-us/meredith-nicholson-house/ James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home and Visitor Center, 528 Lockerbie St., Indianapolis, (317) 631-5885. Info: http://www.rileykids.org/about/riley-museum-home/?referrer=https://www.google.com/#.VZ_i4vlVhBc James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home and Museum, 250 W. Main St., Greenfield, (317) 462-8539. Info: http://www.jwrileyhome.org/ Public Poetry Cottage Home Neighborhhood features "Cottage Home," by Thomas Alan Orr, in a display at a pocket park on the 700 block of Dorman Street (south of St.Clair St.).
Indianapolis Cultural Trail features seven bus stops designed by architect Donna Sink, with poetry from local residents. The bus stops and their poems are:
Virginia Avenue near Woodlawn Avenue (outside of Naisa Pan Asian Restaurant): "The Painters," by Richard Pflum
Virginia Avenue near McCarty Street (outside of Chilly Water Brewing Co.): "Invisible Moments," by Karen Kovacik
Virginia Avenue near Lexington Avenue (just outside of the Mozzo Apartments): "The Bowl of Possible Peas," by John Sherman
Washington Street near the Indiana State Museum and Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art: "Settlement," by Micah Ling
Washington Street, west of Illinois Street and the Indianapolis Artsgarden: "Circle, Circle," by Mitchell L.H. Douglas
Massachusetts Avenue at Walnut and Park streets: "Art With a Heart," by Vienna Wagner
Massachusetts Avenue, east of College Avenue: "Our Street in Endless Circles," by Jenny Brown
Poet's Place, on Alabama Street, between Vermont and New York streets, in front of Fresco Italian Sandwich Shoppe, was designated in honor of Jim Shackleford, the Cultural Trail's unofficial poet. "City Generation," by Elizabeth Weber, is displayed here.
Info: http://indyculturaltrail.org/ictart/poets-place/ Indianapolis International Airport, 7800 Col. H. Weir Cook Memorial Drive, features stained-glass window art by Martin Donlin, which has words and lines of poems from five Indiana writers. (317) 487-9584. Along Concourse A are:
Night, with poem "Echoes," by Ruthelen Burns
Midnight Flight, with poem by Joyce Brinkman
Back in Indiana, with poem by Norbert Krapf
In Concourse B is:
Indiana Flight, with poem by Joseph Heithaus
Note: No information on Jeannie Deeter Smith's poem. No information on Mari Evans poem.
Photos: http://martindonlin.com/portfolio/new-indianapolis-airport-indiana-usa/ Indianapolis-Marion County Central Library, 40 E. St. Clair St., features Arlon Bayliss' artwork using dichronic glass. Light, Words, Life, located in the upper parking garage elevator lobby, features a poet written by Joyce Brinkman. (317) 275-4100. Terre Haute:Max Erhmann at the Crossroads, by Bill Wolfe, at the intersection of Seventh Street and Wabash Avenue,Terre Haute.Visitors can pose and sit on a bench with Max. Also, excerpts from his most famous poem, "Desiderata," appear on plaques embedded in the plaza. Photos and info: http://wabashvalleyartspaces.com/maxview1.html
Word Hunger was a project of Brick Street Poetry to encourage a discussion of food production. Poems and artwork were placed on barns and agricultural buildings throughout the state, Sponsored by Indiana Humanities.
Putnam County (near Crawfordsville): Joseph Heithaus' poem "What Grows Here" appears on a barn on West County Road Road 125 South. Painted by Ken Torr. http://www.bannergraphic.com/story/1674013.htm
Hamilton County Fairgrounds. Ruthelen Burns' poem.
Other site descriptions to come. (See note at bottom.)
I am now going to be handling poetry submissions for the good folks at the Freeman. That means you know the poetry editor! Send me good stuff--liberty related or not. I like formal verse and free verse. I like elegant and exciting use of language.
The things I want to read do what e.e.cummings said here:
"At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer. of burlesk, viz., 'Would you hit a woman with a child?-No, I'd hit her with a brick.' Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement."
Accepted poems get $50, publication online, and possible inclusion in the print quarterly. If you're included in the print version, we'll send you a copy of the issue in which your poem appears.
Submissions should go to: poetry@fee.org
Full submission guidelines are available here. Ignore them at your peril:
The following event has been moved back from Friday, Oct. 23, to Friday, Oct. 30, according to host Gregg DeBoor. 7 p.m.-10 p.m. 4th Friday Spoken Word and Open Mic at Coal Yard Coffee, 5547 Bonna Ave. Featured poets include Dante Fratturo, Helen Townsend, and Lisa Devon. Free. Host: Gregory DeBoor. Info: (317) 777-1161. This is the last poetry program before the coffeeshop is closed for construction.
The Lawrence Art Center, home of the Poets Laureate of Lawrence readings, has moved to 8910 Otis Avenue in the former Fort Benjamin Harrison complex. Coal Yard Coffee, home of monthly poetry readings hosted by Greggory DeBoor, will close for construction after its last event Friday, Oct. 30. According to DeBoor, the shop will move farther south at the Ice House complex, 400 block of South Ritter Avenue. According to a barista at the shop, no decision on moving has been made. A new poetry venue has open at the Garfield Eatery and Coffee, 2627 Shelby St. Greggory DeBoor is hosting two poetry events on the first and third Fridays of the month. Besides featured readers and an open mic, a poetry slam for cash prizes will be offered. Non-poet performers (such as musicians and comedians) will also share the stage.
Four authors with Indiana ties have been honored as winners of the 2015 Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award. Winners were recognized at the Indiana Authors Award Dinner on October 10 at Central Library.
Widely-acclaimed poet and Purdue University Professor of English Marianne Boruch was recognized as the National Author Award Winner. Fellow poet and Pike High School graduate Adrian Matejka was recognized as the Regional Author Award Winner. Short story novelist and Indiana University graduate Clifford Garstang was named Emerging Author Winner. A Lifetime Achievement Honor, only the second ever given to an author who has exemplified great achievement over several decades, was presented to Indianapolis’ Mari Evans, a monumental figure in poetry and education who helped shape women’s history, politics and drama.
Each Indiana Authors Award winner receives a cash prize and can select an Indiana public library to receive a $2,500 grant from The Indianapolis Public Library. Since the Award’s inception in 2009, winning authors have received a total of $157,500, and their designated libraries have received $57,500 in grants.
“The Glick Fund is proud to celebrate these talented authors,” said Marianne Glick, Director at the Eugene & Marilyn Glick Family Foundation. “We hope that the Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award serves as an inspiration and encouragement for the next generation of Indiana writers.”
Indiana Authors Award nominations were submitted in the spring of 2015, and an eight-member statewide award panel selected the winners. Any published writer born in Indiana or who has lived in Indiana for at least five years was eligible.
Nominations for the 2016 Indiana Authors Award will open on February 1, 2016. To learn more, contact the Library Foundation at (317) 275-4700 or visit Indianaauthorsaward.org.
Because it is October and everything scary, I am waging a one-man campaign to expose the public misspellings of Edgar Allan Poe's name. On my Facebook page, I complained about the Ballet Theatre of Indiana and NUVO Newsweekly, both of whom used "Edgar Allen Poe" recently. ================================================================= Late notices:
I have not come across any information about the schedule for the Rufus and Louise Reiberg Reading Series at IUPUI. Anyone have any information?
Also missing is the promised information of the 2016 Max Erhmann Poetry Contest, sponsored by Art Spaces, Inc. in Terre Haute. The organization's website. promised details in September.
October 7 is Random Acts of Poetry and Art Day. This is a new one on me. Any local events planned? Or should we expect unannounced pop-up events throughout the day? ================================================================= On Wednesday afternoon, I attended a poetry reading given by Adrian Matejka at the Pike Branch Library, where I became reacquainted with Kyle Craig and Rachel Sahaidachny. We were the only "outsiders" to attend. The rest were library staff and Adrian's family. Adrian was gracious, taking time to chat with each of us before reading his persona poems about boxer Jack Johnson,which included vintage videos. We learned that Adrian was 1990 Pike High School grad who did not write poetry until he took a class at Indiana University (where he now teaches). He moved to Seattle but slowly made his way back to the Midwest. His mother revealed Adrian wrote a book when was 10 years old. Given the horrible start time (3:30 p.m.) and minuscule publicity, it was a wonder that even we three showed up. But I urge you to grab the next opportunity to hear him.
From the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library website:
Nikki Giovanni Headlines Fall Fest 2015!
Families and individuals of all ages are invited for an afternoon of inspiration and cultural entertainment during "Fall Fest 2015," on Saturday, November 21 from 12 noon - 4 p.m. at Central Library in the Clowes Auditorium, 40 E. St. Clair Street.
Highlighting the event will be a lecture by world renowned poet, activist and educator Nikki Giovanni (2:10 p.m.). In addition to having her works appear on The New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists, Giovanni has been awarded an unprecedented seven NAACP Image Awards, nominated for a Grammy and been a finalist for the National Book Award. She is currently a Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech University. Booksignings (3:30 p.m.) will follow the event. Books will be provided by Donna Stokes-Lucas.
The afternoon also will feature the winners of the teen Slammin’ Rhymes Challenge X who will be presented their awards by Nikki Giovanni (2:55 p.m.), as well as performances by North Star Capoeira, a martial art that combines acrobatics and dance with music (12:10 p.m.); the SITEAW Basket Balancing Race, a fun and educational sport that stems from African culture (12:35 p.m.); Indy Air Bears, an electrifying competitive jump rope team (1 p.m.); Krash Krew, an inspirational and edgy dance group (1:25 p.m.); and inspired poetry readings by the Brave Youth Society (1:55 p.m.).
"Fall Fest 2015" is presented by The Indianapolis Public Library's African-American History Committee and is made possible by the Donna D. Talley Story Theatre Fund, the Dr. Michael R. Twyman Endowment Fund, and Friends of the Library through gifts to The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation. Call 275-4099 for more information about this free Library event.
INDIANAPOLIS -- Trust, respect, friendship and Slam Poetry have found a home in a Belzer Middle School classroom in Lawrence Township. In a short few weeks, 25 students have been transformed into confident speakers of their truths.
Camea Davis is a Belzer language arts teacher and co-founder of Indy Pulse - a slam poetry organization dedicated to creating time and space for kids to express themselves. Slam poetry at Belzer started as a club, but the principal saw the impact it was having and asked Davis if she would teach it – so it has become an elective.
"Slam poetry is a derivative of traditional poetry but it’s in the vernacular of urban, young people. It’s a style of poetry where people can express themselves in their natural way of speaking and it’s very performative," Davis said. "Regular poetry is meant for the page. Slam Poetry is meant for the stage.”
To get ready for the stage, the kids work on performance skills. The class stands in a circle clapping and calling the name of a person across the circle.
“We’re clapping because when you perform it may be loud – so you have to put your voice across the circle. So what they’re learning is – how to work in a community because there is a rhythm and they have to keep the rhythm in unison," Davis said. "They’re learning performance stance – how do I look and stand in front of a group people. They’re learning voice – how to articulate because they have to say something across the circle. How do I project my voice? How do I say something?”
Davis prompts the poetry writing with questions like what color represents the feeling of your mother? If you were a monster, what would you be? And where do you feel safe?
“I’m always surprised about the honesty...Even today, one student - she’s writing a poem about how she was born a crack baby. And to say that in front of your peers, kids that can very easily make fun of you, and it’s such a vulnerable topic cause it says something about your family and where you live and all that," Davis said. "And I was just like 'wow' and she would just do it – and be confident about doing it. So I’m really excited and surprised and then proud of them for being able to write these stories.”
It's about building trust and the students get it. Davis is small in stature, but highly respected.
“She’s not like every other teacher because, you know, every other teacher is just rude and mean and give you assignments after assignments and stuff like that," eighth grader Antwone Haslett said. "But she’s like, she’ll be your teacher, but she’ll be your friend at the same time. So I think that’s pretty cool.”
DaZhane’ Jones says the Slam Poetry class is the highlight of her day.
“I feel happy ‘cause…as an example today, I wasn’t feeling so well and I was like upset." DaZhane' said. "But when I come here, all my fears and hurt goes away and I can be myself without no judgment.”
Davis says building that trusting culture is her number one priority.
“The first two weeks of school all we’re doing is sharing stories about our lives our families, our likes, our dislikes. And they really get to know each other,” she said.
One by one – Davis’ students step up to the microphone in a performance classroom filled with fellow students and family members. Nathan Terhune’s dystopian sounding poem talks of a man emerging and inspiring people to become poets.
For Nathan, in real life, Davis plays the role of the man in his poem.
“If Miss Davis stays here a while she could very well be inspiring a new generation of poets,” he said.
An Indy Pulse Slam Poetry competition will be held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on Thursday, Nov. 5.
This story is part of WFYI's American Graduate initiative. Tune in Saturday, October 3 to 90.1 FM, and WFYI One (20.1) for a day of education programming that explores efforts to raise the high-school graduation rate and improve student outcomes.
Associate professor Ross Gaywas selected for the 2015 National Book Awards Longlist for Poetry.He was selected for his book, “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.”
He is one of 10 poets to be selected; the National Book Foundation will announce the finalists Oct. 14.
“I feel lucky to have the book be amongst a really wonderful bunch of poets and books,” Gay said in an email interview.
His other poetry collections include “Against Which” and “Bringing the Shovel Down,” according to a press release.
Gay said “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” published February 2015,stands out because of its intimate nature.
“My poetry, in this book, is kind of talky and intimate — like it wants to be your friend and tell you stories and ask questions of itself in front of you,” he said in an email. “It kind of wants to hold its heart in its hands (that is a cliche, enjoy it) in front of you, and say, ‘Check this out!’”
A “zillion” things inspired “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” Gay said, ranging from the free-fruit-for-all Bloomington Community Orchard that he is involved in to an incident in his life involving bird poop.
He said the engine of these poems lies in the ways things can possibly be transformed.
“That’s all to say that the strange and undervalued and sexy and gone and unseen and dreamt ... inspire me,” Gay said in an email.
Gay has also co-authored books, including “River”with Richard Wehrenberg, Jr.and “Lace & Pyrite”with Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
He said he writes poems because they are fun, and yet they allow him to connect to his own deeper thinking.
“It is one of the ways I recognize and articulate and interact with my sorrow,” he said. “And my joy.”
Gay said he uses metaphors in his poetry, which are “magic.”
Anyone who is kind enough to read or listen to Gay’s poetry is his intended audience, he said, and he does not take their kindness lightly.
“I cherish it and feel lucky to have any kind of audience,” he said in an email.
He said he hopes these readers take something from his poetry.
“I hope something useful,” he said in an email. “Someone told me they left a reading of mine and smelled flowers for the first time in years. That was pretty good.”
UPDATE: James R. Depp died Sr. Saturday morning, Sept. 26.
A wake for J.R. Depp Sr. will be at South Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, 1146 South Kenwood Avenue, will be from 10 a.m. to noon Friday, Oct. 2, with services following.
Editor Stacy Savage is seeking submissions for a short verse poetry contest. Poems can be up to 20 lines and about any subject. No limit on number of entries submitted. Previously published works are acceptable. There is a $1 per poem entry fee. All proceeds will go to As Wings of Eagles, Inc. to help pay for a larger enclosure for the organization’s resident eagle, Belle.
Send submissions, along with the entry fee and a cover sheet with name, address, email address, and titles of poems submitted, to: Short Verse Poetry Contest, 3121 Mounds Road, Anderson, Indiana, 46016.
Make check payable to: Stacy Savage.
The winner will receive a copy of the 1865 antique book: Enoch Arden by Alfred Tennyson, the winning poem published in the online journal, Indiana Voice Journal, and on the poetry blog, Whispers, a 5x7 photo signed by As Wings of Eagles, Inc. of Belle, and $30.
The deadline for entries is August 31, 2015. The contest judges are Stacy Savage and Janine Pickett. The winner will be announced on the Facebook page, Poetry Contests for a Cause, on September 16.
UPDATE from Stacy Savage
It's that time--time to announce the winner of the Short Verse Poetry Contest! The winner is Kay Cheshire for her poem "Contentment". Thank you Janine Pickett, publisher and editor of Indiana Voice Journal, for helping with judging. It was not hard to decide on a winner. We both loved Kay's wonderful poem. Kay shows what a poet can do with their words with this beautiful piece. Following is a short excerpt from her poem that shows her talent and what I am talking about.
"rest in an oak's shadow while butterflies carry away the hurt".
Congratulations Kay! Her poem will be published in a future issue of Indiana Voice Journal and on the popular blog, Whispers.
Not near as many entries were received for this contest as the last contest, but $126 was raised for As Wings of Eagles. I am sure they will be glad to receive that and it will help get them a step closer to building a new enclosure for the bald eagle, Belle. Thank you to all of you who entered and a big thanks to those who sent a donation for As Wings of Eagles. It is truly appreciated!
UPDATE: The deadline has been extended to Sept. 30 Invitation: Submit a line or two of verse on the topic of Dream to DreamIndyPoem@gmail.com Dream Indy Poem Dreams exist in a variety of forms. There are the dreams we have when thinking of the future. We dream of traveling to Ireland or Africa, we dream of starting a band, or we dream of a just society.
Then there are the dreams we have while sleeping. Sometimes we dream of silly things that don’t make sense, and sometimes a dream might fill us with positive energy. Other times our nightmares fill us with fear or embarrassment.
Lastly, there are the sort of dreams we have when daydreaming—perhaps we fantasize, we take a break from the everyday and create a world and characters, we write a play or a poem. Many writers, both past and present, have written about dreams:
In his “March on Washington” speech, Martin Luther King writes, I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
In her poem “it was a dream,” Lucille Clifton writes, in which my greater self rose up before me accusing me of my life with her extra finger whirling in a gyre of rage at what my days had come to. what, i pleaded with her, could i do, oh what could i have done? and she twisted her wild hair and sparked her wild eyes and screamed as long as i could hear her This. This. This.
In Act IV, Scene 1 of The Tempest, Shakespeare writes, We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
Whatever kind of dream you are interested in, we invite you to dream with the above writers in verse, adding your visions and ideas on Dream in a line or two of verse. Submitted lines will be crafted into one or more community poems for display at the downtown Indianapolis Artsgarden as part of Spirit and Place 2015.
Wabash College Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Nate Marshall, was recently awarded the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.
Marshall’s first book, “Wild Hundreds” (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. He is a co-editor of “The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop” (2015). He is a founding member of the Dark Noise poetry collective and a Cave Canem Fellow. His work has appeared in “Poetry,” “Indiana Review” and “The New Republic,” among other publications. He was the star of the award-winning documentary “Louder Than A Bomb” and was featured in the HBO Original Series “Brave New Voices.” Marshall received the 2014 Hurston / Wright Founding Members Award and the 2013 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. Marshall received his B.A. degree from Vanderbilt University and his MFA from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Among the largest awards offered to young poets in the U.S., the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry prize was established in 1989 by Ruth Lilly to encourage the further writing and study of poetry. In 2013, the Poetry Foundation received a generous gift from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund to create the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships.
Below is a link to a story about Fort Wayne poet Michael Derrick Hudson, a white man who used a Chinese pseudonym because he thought it would help him be selected for publication. The scheme worked so well, that his poem was included in the annual Best American Poetry anthology. I 90% join the condemnation of this man, but there's 10% of me that understands his reason for doing so.
He says editors kept rejecting his poems, but when he changed his name to that of an ethnic group, his acceptance rate improved. This says several things things to me. One, editors DO notice names. Two, does this suggest that editors are willing to accept poems from minorities that they normally would not have accepted from Caucasians? Three, does the quality of a poem matter more than the poet?
Until poems can be judge blindly (that is, without identifications attached), abuses by submitters and editors will continue.
UPDATE: It's now reported that Michael Derrick Hudson adopted the name of a high school classmate. The family of Yi-Fen Chou is requesting that Hudson stop using the name. Geesh. He couldn't even invent a fake name.
CORRECTION: The workshop will begin Oct. 6. Women Veterans’
Wartime Memoirs: A Writing Workshop
Women
veterans of all ages are invited to join this free memoir-writing workshop
designed to help them craft their military stories through prose or poetry.
Led by Shari Wagner, a published writer and
instructor for the Indiana Writers Center, each two-hour session will include
prompts and models, in-class writing activities, discussion, and feedback.
Women at all levels of writing experience are
welcome. It’s only necessary that they
have the desire to develop their writing skills and share their stories. Workshops
will be the first and third Tuesdays of the month at The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, 340 N. Senate Ave., Indianapolis. and will run from October through March. The dates are Oct. 6 and 20, Nov. 3 and 17, Dec. 1 and 15, Jan. 5 and 19, Feb. 2 and 16, March 6 and 20.
The best work from each veteran will be
published in a book by the Indiana Writers Center and celebrated at a public
reading in May.
Contact Shari Wagner (sharimwagner@aol.com)
for more details and to register. Shari’s faculty bio is available at www.indianawriters.org/pages/Shari-Wagner.
As a professor of comparative literature, David Hertz spends every day immersed in reading and writing.
Hertz, the chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at IU, has written books on a variety of art topics including modern architecture, poetry and music.
On Tuesday, Hertz will take patrons of the Venue Fine Art & Gifts on an in-depth tour of what he calls one of his favorite projects, a book titled “Eugenio Montale, the Fascist Storm and the Jewish Sunflower.”
At 5:30 p.m., he will give a lecture on the book and its background. A book signing will follow the lecture.
The book was originally published in 2013, and Hertz said he hoped this event introduces people who may not have known about the book to the history, mystery and an unexplored love story.
“I wanted to bring out a story and also the magical literary expression that came out of it — it’s like a double story,” Hertz said.
The book explores the life of Italian poet Eugenio Montale, 1975 Nobel Prize winner and celebrated modern writer.
Hertz said Montale fell in love with Irma Brandeis, an American Jew, during Mussolini’s fascist regime.
Montale’s work, Hertz explained, was deeply coded with messages to the love he could not publicly express as he and Brandeis sat separated by politics and circumstance.
“It’s a secret cycle of poems,” Hertz said. “You wouldn’t know exactly who the person he writes about is unless you researched.”
Hertz said he worked on this book for almost a decade.
Dave Colman, curator of the Venue, said Hertz’s depth of research led him to the real story.
“He’s an incredible scholar, he’s an excellent lecturer, and it’s an amazing story — both the story of Montale’s relationship and how David found it,” Colman said. “He was working on that book when he discovered this body of additional information. It changed the whole perspective.”
Colman said he is excited to learn from Hertz, his friend of many years.
“David’s an excellent writer, for starters,” Colman said. “He’s just an incredibly talented fellow in so many areas. I’m interested in Montale because he is. He led me to it.”
The research for the book involved a trip to Italy to see the hidden papers and love letters and some journalistic interviews with Brandeis’ connections in the U.S.
“You have to be a good journalist to write a criticism like this,” Hertz said. “We shouldn’t forget about journalists.”
Hertz said writing an in-depth analysis like this one required the usage of overlapping disciplines.
He said he likes to combine elements of interpretation, history and biography in all of his writing.
“I’m looking to show things that might have been missed,” Hertz said. “Somebody who just writes about poetry might not look at music. I like to see the connections, and there’s a lot of that in this particular book.”
Hertz is not just a writer and scholar of the arts. A longtime student of music, Hertz said his passion for that expressive form was another reason why Montale’s story resonated with him.
“My oldest running love affair is with the piano,” Hertz said. “I play it all the time and studied it all my life. I write about musicians and architects, and I found out that this Italian poet also wrote music, so that’s another reason I wanted to write about him.”
Beginning with his undergraduate career in the honors college at IU, Hertz said he found his calling in literature and writing.
He said he is satisfied with his career, which allows him to balance his passions.
"My interest in writing led to this particular professional path," Hertz said. "If you're a professor in the humanities and you like to write, you have an excellent life. If you give me a topic to write about and send me off, I'm happy."
The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation has announced that poet and Indianapolis resident Mari Evans is the recipient of the 2015 Indiana Authors Award Lifetime Achievement Award. This marks only the second time an author has received this award from the Library Foundation.
Evans will join five already-announced Indiana Authors Award winners and finalists at the Indy Author Fair and Indiana Authors Award Dinner on October 10 at Central Library. The Lifetime Achievement Award allows Evans to select an Indiana library to receive a $2,500 grant on behalf of the Library Foundation. The public is invited to a celebration of Evans’ life and work will be held at 10:15 a.m. during the free Indy Author Fair.
Evans’ monumental career spans decades and has shaped women’s history, politics, music and drama. She is the author of numerous articles and children's books, and her work has been included in hundreds of anthologies and textbooks, including translations into many other languages. Much of Evans’ work focuses on the celebration of Africa and the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as other themes that bring to light the reality of the African-American experience. Evans became a well-respected figure in the Black Arts Movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her impact on Africa was reflected in 1997 when the Ugandan government issued a commemorative postage stamp in her honor.
Teens are invited to participate in a special poetry workshop following Evans’ celebration at the Indy Author Fair, includes opportunities to purchase books, participate in book signings and take part in workshops and one-on-one interactions with accomplished authors. Workshops will focus on writing and publishing nonfiction books, blogging for writers, getting started with writing and writing for young authors.
The Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award recognizes Indiana authors’ contributions to the literary landscape in Indiana and across the nation. The Award is a program of the Library Foundation and is funded through the generosity of The Glick Fund, a fund of Central Indiana Community Foundation. IIndividual and full table tickets are available for the Award Dinner, a benefit for the Library Foundation. For additional information about the Indiana Authors Award and festivities, visit Indianaauthorsaward.org
Families and individuals of all ages are invited for an afternoon of inspiration and cultural entertainment during "Fall Fest 2015," on Saturday, November 21 from 12 noon - 4 p.m. at Central Library in the Clowes Auditorium, 40 E. St. Clair Street.
