Photo by Murfreesboro photographer laureate Gale Stoner on display at the Center for the Arts Gallery, 110 W. College St., through Nov. 19
In November, according to Rita Dove, we “rise in a light / that is already leaving.” Both autumn colors and our changing clocks may be sources of inspiration, but this month local writers can also turn to the images of Murfreesboro photographer laureate Gale Stoner. Poetry in the Boro, which suggests a writing challenge to the community each month, is encouraging writers to respond, in poetry or short prose, to an exhibit of Stoner’s landscape photos. “Pauses Off the Path” is on display at the Center for the Arts Gallery, 110 W. College St., through Nov. 19. A reception will be held Friday, Nov. 2, from 6–9 p.m. The public is invited.
Writers can share their responses—or other poems—during the open mic portion of Poetry in the Boro at Murfreesboro Little Theatre on Sunday evening, Nov. 11. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Featured poets Carlina Duan and Sarah McCartt-Jackson read at 7, and open mic time with host Gregory Lannom follows. Both authors will have books available for sale.
Duan is author of the poetry collection I Wore My Blackest Hair (Little A Books) and a MFA candidate at Vanderbilt, where she also teaches poetry and co-edits Nashville Review. She is the winner of multiple Hopwood awards, a Fulbright grant and Narrative Magazine’s 30 Below Contest.
Sarah McCartt-Jackson is a Kentucky poet, folklorist, and naturalist whose most recent book is Stonelight, just out from Airlie Press. She has served as artist-in-residence for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Shotpouch Cabin in Oregon.
For more details, and to sample some of Stoner’s exhibit, find Poetry in the Boro on Facebook.
Also in November:
Thursday, Nov. 8, travel guide, public television show host and humanitarian Rick Steves will be appearing at MTSU to discuss his latest of more than 50 books, Travel as a Political Act. Held in the Student Union Ballroom at 7:30 p.m., this free event is open to the public.
On Thursdays through Nov. 15, MTSU’s “In Process” series continues. This weekly event, open to the public, provides the opportunity for writers to mingle and hear works in progress. As the semester winds down, the schedule includes local playwrights Andy Landis and Arabelle Pollick (Nov. 1), literary translator and memoirist Allen Hibbard (Nov. 8) and an open mic (Nov. 15). This is held at 4:30 p.m. in the Sam H. Ingram MT Center on Tennessee Blvd. near Lytle St.
“Grieving” by Sarah McCartt-Jackson first appeared in the journal Cease, Cow and is also included in her book Stonelight from Airlie Press.
Grieving
by Sarah McCartt-Jackson
You think you are fine, will always be fine. You braid your hair. You think about not washing the dishes. You buy a box of milk, sign and mail the burial plot papers, peel paint from the dining room chair, or address letters to your husband at the coal camp. Chickens peck at grit in the yard but there’s not enough cornbread to scrape from the skillet, so you prepare a boiling pot to pluck and slaughter the scrawniest bird. You splinter the unfinished chair on the porch steps. When your face floats in the scummy pond or in your hand-mirror in the woodburning light or over the dark pupils of your other daughters, you beg to be let go, burn a hymn into the air until your voice blisters each oak knot in your plank walls. You pull the quilts closer, feel winter creep over your toes. You feel bloodless but do not sleep, your night wide and heavy with the mountain. You listen to your children breathing through the shale. You whisper, Shhhh, shhhh.
