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Introduction:
In 1997 I was fortunate to receive a
Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Writers Award and, as a part of that grant,
designed a series of community poetry workshops to be held at the
Santa Fe Public Library.
The workshops occurred on March 7, May 6, and October 3, 1998. Some of
the workshops were designed specifically for teenagers; others were open
to teenagers and adults. I conducted my third workshop as part of the
first Santa Fe
Festival of the Book; visiting poet Joy Harjo read her poems, also
conducted a workshop as part of this festival and held individual conferences
with creative writing majors at the
Institute of American Indian Arts.
I had each of my workshops explore different possibilities. In one workshop, I discussed the Arabic form of poetry, the ghazal, that, in its contemporary form, features leaping, disjunctive couplets. In another workshop, I featured the Japanese haibun which, roughly, has a prose passage that leads up to a haiku flash. In another workshop, I had participants write their own poems working off of images from famous paintings and photographs. Joy Harjo had the participants in her workshop write about their fears. In looking over the work, I am impressed with the vitality and diversity of the writing. Valerie Brooker and I enjoyed making the selections for this anthology, and we know that this is not necessarily the best writing but is rather a representative selection of writing acomplished through the workshops. There are poems here by teenagers who have never written poetry before, and there are also poems by adults who have published professionally in esteemed literary journals.
It is a pleasure to bring all of this varied work together, and I want
to thank Joanne Werger and Valerie Brooker at the Santa Fe Public Library,
the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library, as well as the Lila
Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund for their support.
Retinal Exchange: Sherwin Bitsui, Ioanna Carlsen, Elizabeth Jacobson, Laura Nichols, Ann-Marie Oskolkoff, Dylan Ravenfox, Barbara Rockman, Betsy Fogelman Tighe, John Tritica, Joanne Young, Carlos Martinez, Josh Flores
Publication of the printed volume was made possible by a grant from the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Fund.
Copies are available, free, as long as the supply lasts. Ask at the Reference Desk at the
Santa Fe Public Library, 145 Washington Avenue, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501.
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