Category Archives: Poetry

Writer in residence: Katrina Maloney

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Katrina_MaloneyWe are delighted to welcome Katrina Maloney as Nonesuch writer in residence during the month of September at Main & Station. Katrina lives and writes in southern New Hampshire and, while here, is thrilled to be dedicating her time to the second volume of letters from her great grand aunt who was in Russia from 1917-1919.  s386686241581639622_p2_i2_w640The first volume Dearest Ones at Home: Clara Taylor’s Letters from Russia, 1917-1919, came out in 2014, published by  SheWrites Press, Berkeley, CA.  Katrina is also the author of Strong Women and Horses: poems, published in 2014 by Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, KY.

You can find out more about Katrina on her website, http://www.katrinamaloney.net, and by attending her presentation in the Nonesuch Café at Main & Station on Saturday, 16 September at 8pm.

Dearest Ones at Home

RENGA NIGHT

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Renga 2017_webRenga is an old form of Japanese poetry related to Chinese forms of short poems, predating even haiku.  It is a tool for socializing happily, as people sit together and write single two or three-line verses according to content prescribed by a formula.  The Renga Masters (Brendan Hewitt and Czandra) will choose from the verses produced, and link it with the next, and so on, for a total of 18 or 36 verses.

 

This form was used as a safe form for correspondence also:  one poet sends three lines to her friend, who responds in two lines, and back and forth.  Participants should be prepared to enjoy the exercise as a kind of game, but also need to observe the Asian formalism and respect it to some extent!

連歌   the evening will take place in English!
Brendan and Czandra have participated in renga for several years.  Brendan is known in his home town as the Haiku Master.  Czandra compiled and printed hand-made haiku broadsheets for KaDo haiku group two years in a row, which were read consecutive springs at the Japanese Embassy in Ottawa.  Both she and Brendan have read for the Japanese Ambassador from their own work.  Both are members of Haiku Canada, and they’re married, with two sons.
The result of the first Renga night at Main & Station in 2015 was published in the online journal, A Hundred Gourds… http://www.ahundredgourds.com