My Year in Writing 2023
December 6, 2023
Now is the time, between my birthday and the end of the year, when I take stock of my year in writing. This year, which culminated my sixtieth trip around the Sun, has been a pretty productive year.
Here are some of the highlights:
Barzakh Magazine accepts essay, “Açorianidade & the Radiance of Sensibility” just after Xmas! (Published in January)
Reading of Berkshire Writers in Housatonic; read the first chapter of Falling Up. (January)
Guest writer @ Margarida Vale de Gato’s Eco-poetics Masters Class, Universidade de Lisboa via Zoom (January)
Alfred Lewis Bilingual Reading Series, FresnoState PBBI(part of the PBBI-FLAD lecture series 2023), Co-curators: Diniz Borges and RoseAngelina Baptista; Poets: Alberto Pereira, Sam Pereira, PaulA Neves, Scott Edward Anderson, and RoseAngelina Baptista (February)
Guest lecturer, Universidade de Lisboa, Professora Margarida Vale de Gatos’ class on American Literature in person. (March)
Guest speaker, Universidade dos Açores, Ponta Delgada, Professora Ana Cristina Gil’s class, in person. (March)
My essay, “STUDIO LOG: THE TOM TOM CLUB’S “GENIUS OF LOVE,” A MEMOIR AND EXPOSITION IN 18 TRACKS,” lost in the 2nd Round of the Marchxness battle of “One Hit Wonders” to Adam O. Davis’ essay on “In a Big Country” by Big Country. (March)
Installation of my poem. “River of Stars,” on Poetry Path at Ryan Observatory at Muddy Run, and presentation with Michele Beyer (a teacher inspired by my conversation with Derek Pitts in November 2022) to write poetry with her class. (April)
Interview by Francisco Cota Fagundes published in Gávea-Brown: A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-American Letters and Studies, XLVII, as part of a special issue devoted to Celebrating Portuguese Diaspora Literature in North America. (Spring)
Guest lecturer, University of California at Santa Barbara, Portuguese literature class, Professor André Corrêa de Sá. (June)
“Love & Patience on Mt. Pico” (essay) published in The Write Launch (July)
“Through the Gates of My Ancestral Island” (essay) published in Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature (July)
“Orpheu Ascending,” a review of Orpheu Literary Quarterly, volumes 1 and 2, translated from the Portuguese by David Swartz, published in Pessoa Plural—A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, Issue 23 (July)
Seeing—Reading—Writing: Transforming Our Relationship to Language and Nature: A Workshop with Ryan Shea and Scott Edward Anderson at The Nature Institute, Ghent, NY (July)
Creative nonfiction mentor, Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program, mentored two students. (July)
“Birds in the Hand: The Berkshire Bird Observatory’s Impassioned Ben Nickley” (article) in Berkshire Magazine. (July)
Poetry booth, “Zucchrostic poems,” at West Stockbridge, MA, Zucchini Festival (August)
Two poems in Into the Azorean Sea: A Bilingual Anthology of Azorean Poetry, translated and organized by Diniz Borges, published by Letras Lavadas in São Miguel and Bruma Publications, Fresno State. (August)
Meet & Greet at The Book Loft in Great Barrington, MA. (Sept)
“Berkshire Brain Gain” (article) published in Berkshire Magazine (Sept)
Dedication of Binocular telescope at Ryan Observatory at Muddy Run and poems by Ada Limón and Gabe Catherman installed on Poetry Path. (October)
Visited Praia da Vitória on Terceira Island, Azores, birthplace and boyhood home of Vitorino Nemésio. (October)
Participated in Arquipélago de Escritores in Angra on Terceira Island. (October)
Met António Manuel Melo Sousa in Ponta Delgada with Pedro Almeida Maia (see related entry below) (October)
Guest lecturer, Fresno State, Professor Diniz Borges’ class on Azorean Literature, presented “Becoming Azorean American: A Diasporic Journey,” (lecture). (October)
“António Melo Sousa, Letras de canções e outros rascunhos – uma apreciação” (review) published in Grotta: Arquipélago de Escritores, #6. (November)
Recorded an episode of “Solo Creatives of the Berkshires” for CTSB-TV, Community Television for the Southern Berkshires, presenting and reading from several of my books. (November)
“Get ‘Hygge’ With It: Cozy Spots and Comfort Food in the Berkshires” (article) published in Berkshire Magazine. (December)
“Seeking My Roots Through a Painter’s Eyes” (essay) published in Revista Islenha, Issue 73, in Madeira, Portugal. (December)
Habitar: um ecopoema, Margarida Vale de Gato’s translation of my book, Dwelling: an ecopoem, gets mention in Paula Perfeito’s Entre-Vistas blog. (27 December)
What a year! I am exceedingly grateful to everyone who has supported my writing over the past year. As Walter Lowenfels wrote, “One reader is a miracle; two, a mass movement.”
Like I said last year, I feel like I’ve been blessed by a mass miracle this year!
Ekphrastic Poems: Can they stand alone?
February 26, 2011
Black Angus, Cooperstown by Paul Niemiec, Jr. (used by permission of the artist)
Caroline Mary Crew, writing about ekphrastic poetry in her always engaging blog, Flotsam, asks, “Can the poem stand apart from the painting?”
She cites some worthy examples of various approaches and “types” of ekphrastic poems, including famous examples by Auden, Keats, and O’Hara, as well as a poem that was completely unknown to me, Monica Youn’s “Stealing The Scream.”
I was intrigued by Caroline’s question and sent her an example of my own, “Fallow Field,” which was not quite an ekphrastic poem by strictest definition — that is, a poem that comments upon another artwork, because Joshua Sheldon’s photograph and my poem were created at the same moment.
It occurred to me that another of my poems, “Black Angus, Winter,” was also a kind of ekphrastic poem, of the type Caroline categorizes as narrative/monologue.
This poem, which was part of a group that won The Nebraska Review Award, was inspired in part by the landscape of central New York State, where I spent summers in the mid-1980s. There was much to inspire: rolling hills, dairy and cattle farms, cornfields, and old, often dilapidated farm buildings.
The poem also found inspiration and a launching-off point in a painting by a friend, Paul Niemiec, to whom the poem is dedicated. (Reproduced above.)
Here is my poem
“Black Angus, Winter”
I.
The angus rap their noses
on the ice–
fat, gentle fists
rooting water
from the trough.
They kick up clods of dirt
as a madrigal of shudders
ripples their hides.
II.
The barn needs painting,
it’s chipped like ice
from an ice-cutter’s axe.
The fence also needs work,
posts leaning, wire slack.
The Angus keep still–
they’re smarter than we think,
know all about electricity.
III.
I cross the barnyard
on my way back from the pond,
ice skates keeping time
against the small of my back.
The sting of the air
is tempered by the heat of manure.
Through the barn door:
Veal calf jabbing at her mother’s udder.
(For Paul Niemiec)
–Scott Edward Anderson
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Scott Edward Anderson
Scott Edward Anderson's Poetry Blog 