A 9-11 poem written by Catawba College’s Writer-in-Residence and Professor of English Dr. Janice Moore Fuller was featured Sept. 7 on the N.C. Arts Council’s website. Her poem, “This Whistling is For You There in the Dark,” was among poems by N.C. poets featured on the site to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9-11.
Fuller wrote the featured poem while she was on a 2001 sabbatical in Wales. The occasion was a joint poetry reading with Welsh poet Menna Elfyn on Oct. 4, 2011, National Poetry Day, at an art gallery (Oriel Mostyn) in Llandudno in conjunction with the opening of an international exhibit on intimacy. This poem first appeared in “Poets for Peace: A Collection” (edited by Timothy Crowley, Chapel Hill Press, 2002) and was subsequently published in the collection “Sex Education” (Iris Press, 2004).
According to the N.C. Arts Council website, North Carolina Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers and award-winning poet and novelist Joseph Bathanti “gathered works from notable poets across the state that touch directly on 9/11 or reflect associated themes of loss, hope, peace, reconciliation and more.”
Each day through Sept. 11, selected 9/11 poetry will be posted on the N.C. Arts Council website http://ncartseveryday.org/poet-laureate/nc-poets-on-911/.
Fuller has published three poetry books — “Archeology Is a Destructive Science” (Scots Plaid Press, 1998), “Sex Education” (Iris Press, 2004) and “Séance” (Iris Press, 2007), winner of the Poetry Council of North Carolina’s Oscar Arnold Young Award.
Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Magma (London), New Welsh Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Kakalak, Poems & Plays, Cave Wall, Comstock Review, Fourth River, The Pedestal, Pembroke Magazine, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Main Street Rag and Nantahala. She has been writer-in-residence at Wales’s Ty Newydd Centre and a fellow at the Tyrone Guthrie Center, Fundación Valparaíso in Spain, Edinburgh’s Hawthornden International Centre, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and Portugal’s Foundation Obras Centre for Arts and Science.
Her stage adaptation of William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” will premiere at Catawba’s Hedrick Theatre Tuesday, Sept. 27, through Saturday, Oct. 1.
Author signs thriller-fantasy
Kenn Phillips of Salisbury will sign copies of his debut fantasy novel, “Lost Gods: Part I: In The Shadow of the Sun,” on Saturday, Sept. 17, 1-3 p.m. at Literary Bookpost, 110 S. Main St., Salisbury. The book begins on Main Street in Salisbury and moves to the streets of Charlotte and beyond, using a mix of genres, with the elements of a thriller and some Norse mythology, as well as Phillips’ own mythology. Phillips is already at work on the next part.
He is a correctional officer and the owner of Raven’s Post Publishing.