Entering The Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo
Published by Wavertree Press, 2011
Featured Poem: “Blues, For Bill”
About the poem:
“This poem was begun in September 1998. The previous fall, my mentor and friend, William Matthews had died suddenly. Although almost a year had passed, I was still coming to grips with the enormous hole his death left. In his collection Blues If You Want, is a poem which I have always loved, “Mood Indigo,” which draws on memories of time spent on a dairy farm in Ohio. During a residency at VCCA, the presence of cows outside my studio window made his poem very present to me, making it in turn possible for me to write my own homage to Bill under the spell and in the spirit of its lyrical mystery. When “Blues, For Bill” was finished, for the first time I felt I had done justice to him for all he had given me. Coincidentally, Ploughshares accepted this poem shortly after 9/11, when I was displaced from my home near Ground Zero. The original acceptance letter was lost in the aftermath; only because Don Lee finally reached me months later did I learn the good news, compounding the poem’s bittersweet legacy.” —Andrea Carter Brown
About the anthology:
This anthology celebrates the 40th Anniversary of The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts with previously published poems by VCCA Fellows inspired by or about their residencies on Mt. San Angelo.
Praise:
“Leaving VCCA, taking the narrow road back to the highway, [Fellows] see a sign that says “The Real World,” yet most would say that VCCA is the real world, the other being a place of confusion and discord—or maybe it’s just a bit trivial in comparison. There are over sixty poets here and they represent many countries; their names and contributor notes make it clear that VCCA has made its mark felt worldwide. VCCA is international in scope, local in feeling, and exists, for the artists, in a timeless universe. All of them are important poets; all of them are exciting and adept. Their work brings us not only the ‘real world’ but the real stuff.” —Kelly Cherry, Virginia Poet Laureate 2010-2012, author of Beholder’s Eye & 18 previous poetry collections
“This anthology is at once a work of literary merit, a celebratory offering, and an historical record of an hallowed place.”
—Margaret B. Ingraham, Editor
Purchase
Online at the VCCA’s website (link to review)
Contact the author