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Schedule 2008
Poetry:
The Muses Workshop
co-ordinator
Alicia Stallings
June 14 – July
4, 2009
The
Program
The
poetry seminar on the island of Spetses is a three-
week session focusing on the writing and appreciation of poetry, in
the land where Western literature was born, and which has
continued to inspire English-language poets through the ages, from Byron
and Rupert Brooke to James Merrill and Seamus Heaney.
Join
Alicia Stallings and visiting poets for workshops in an
idyllic island setting. Explore how contemporary poetry can
flourish rooted in the fertile soil of ancient myth and modern Greece.
Afternoons and weekends are free to read and write and soak up inspiration
from the sun and sea.
Roger
Green, reading on Spetses in 2008
While
participants are welcome to bring old material to the "workshop,"
the three-week program emphasizes producing drafts of new work, with an
eye to exploring myth and form, and in the context of reading and
discussing poetry (in English translation) from or inspired by Greece,
from ancient to modern times, Homer to Heaney, Cavafy to Merrill.
Classes meet 9 am- 12 pm Monday through Friday. Afternoons and
weekends are free to muse, write, read, swim, explore or travel.
Some suggested texts are: Orpheus & Co. (University Press of New
England, 1999), ed. By Deborah De Nicola; Robert Fagles' translation of
the Odyssey; and Kimon Friar's Modern Greek Poetry (Efstadthidis)--all
available on Amazon.com. A good second-hand mythology guide
(Bullfinch, Graves, or Hamilton), is also recommended.
Participants
are welcome to bring laptops (with adaptors: Greece is 220v to USA's
110), although it is necessary to go to one of the island's internet cafes
to print. Internet cafes also offer word processing.
Photocopying is available on the island, but tends to be rather expensive.
Participants who wish to bring older poems for workshopping are encouraged
to bring copies with them. As a rule, poems are shared by reading
aloud, and focused listening, rather than passing work around, though a
blackboard is available to go over difficult passages. We have found
this method, which might be new to some participants, to be very
effective.
While
the program has a rolling admissions policy, applicants are encouraged to
send some of their own poetry with their application. A brief bio with any publications or short
letter explaining one's interest in the course is also welcome.
Previous publication is by no means, however, a necessary qualification.
Previous participants have included undergraduates majoring in other
fields, as well as older poets with extensive prestigious publications to
their credit, or people with a rekindled interest in writing after years
of silence. The workshop is also useful for teachers of writing and
literature.
In
addition to other Athens Centre evening programs (such as Greek dance
evenings), or theatre productions,the program features evening readings by
visiting American, British and Greek poets and are open to the public.
This year's schedule will include, among others, faculty poets A.E.
Stallings, , Adrianne Kalfopoulou, Tony Barnstone,
Judith Kleck, Richard Cecil, Roger Green, Stephen Yenser ,Sofka Zinovieff
Greek
writers will include renowned poet Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, novelist,
short-story writer Nick
Papandreou, publisher, Dinos Siotis, Tryfopn Tolidis and
Stefanos Papadopoulos
Summer
2008 Spetses Poetry & Prose Evenings
All readings take place at 8pm,
at the Villa
Alexia in the Kounoupitsa area,
unless otherwise indicated. All
readings are free and open to the public.
Wine and conversation follows the events. For
more information, please call 210.701.5242
/210.701.2268
Wednesday
June 18
Adrianne
Kalfopoulou
Tryfon
Tolides
Friday
June 20
Ellie
Evans
Roger
Green
Mark
Sargent
Monday June 23: At
the
Bouboulina
Museum
Sofka
Zinovieff
Wednesday
June 25
A.E.
Stallings
Stephen
Yenser
Friday
June 27: At
the
Bouboulina
Museum
Nicholas
Papandreou
Monday
June 30
Katerina
Anghelaki-Rooke
Stephanos
Papadopoulos
Wednesday
July 2
Tony
Barnstone
Dinos
Siotis
Friday
July 4
The Muses Workshop
Students
Poetry
Bios
Ellie Evans was born in
Wales
and read English at
Oxford
. She is doing a Creative Writing Doctorate at
Bath
, with a special study on Pascale Petit.
Sofka Zinovieff was born
in
England
and is of Russian extracton. She studied anthropology at
Cambridge
; then, after spells living in
Russia
and
Italy
, settled with her family in
Greece
, an experience which she describes in her first, highly acclaimed book,
Eurydice Street
(Granta Books). Her latest book is Red Princess:
A Revolutionary Life.
Stephen Yenser, Distinguished Professor of English and Director of
Creative Writing at UCLA, took his B.A. from the
University
of
Wichita
and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the
University
of
Wisconsin
at
Madison
. His most recent volume of
poems is Blue Guide (
University
of
Chicago Press
). The Fire in All
Things (LSU Press) received the Walt Whitman Award from the
Academy
of
American Poets
. His other awards include the
B. F. Connors Prize from the Paris Review, an Ingram Merrill
Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, two appearances in the Best
American Poetry series, and two Fulbright Fellowships, one to
France
and one to
Greece
. He has also taught for a
year at the
University
of
Baghdad
. He has written three
critical books (Circle to Circle: The
Poetry of Robert Lowell; The
Consuming Myth: The Work of
James Merrill; and A
Boundless Field: American
Poetry at Large) and
has just completed a fourth (Extravagant
Engagements: American Poetry
beyond the Pale). He
is co-editor of Merrill’s Collected
Poems, Collected Prose, Collected
Novels and Plays, The Changing
Light at Sandover, and (forthcoming in 2008) Selected
Poems.
Stephanos
Papadopoulos
was born in
North Carolina
and raised in
Paris
and
Athens
. He is the author of Lost
Days published by Leviathan Press in the
London
and Rattapallax in
New York
. His work appears in journals such as The New Republic, The Yale Review,
Poetry Review, Stand and numerous international journals and anthologies.
He has translated works of the Greek poets, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke,
Yiannis Ritsos and Kostas Karyotakis.
His own work had been translated into Greek by Katerina
Anghelaki–Rooke. He is the editor and co-translator of Derek Walcott’s
Selected Poems published in Greek by Kastaniotis Editions in 2007.
His second collection, Hotel-Dieu, is forthcoming from Sheep Meadow
Press and he is at present completing a collection of poems about the
Black Sea Greeks, following a motorcycle trip through the region in 2007.
Tryfon Tolides was born in
Korifi Voiou
,
Greece
. He has completed a BFA in Creative Writing at the
University
of
Maine
, and an MFA at
Syracuse
University
. He has received a Reynolds Scholarship, the 2004 Foley Poetry Prize, and
his manuscript, An Almost Pure Empty Walking, a 2005 National Poetry
Series selection, was published by Penguin in
July 2006. His work has appeared in
America
, Atlanta Review, Mondo Greco, Poetry Daily, Worcester Review, and
elsewhere. He lives in
Farmington
,
Connecticut
.
Katerina
Anghelaki-Rooke,
born in
Athens
, is one of
Greece
’s foremost poets and a distinguished translator.
She studied Foreign Languages and Literature at the
University
of
Nice
,
Athens
and
Geneva
, and after graduating from
Geneva
in 1962 was awarded that city’s First Prize for Poetry. She
has read poetry and lectured at major universities and literary festivals
in the
USA
,
Canada
,
Mexico
and across
Europe
. In 1985 she was awarded the
Greek State Award for Poetry. Her
latest book is Translating into Love
Life’s End, translated by herself.
Tony
Barnstone is Associate Professor of Creative Writing and English at
Whittier
College
and has published his poetry, fiction, essays and translations in dozens
of major American journals. Among
his translations are The Anchor Book
of Chinese Poetry, and The Art
of Writing: Teaching the
Chinese Masters. His
latest collection is Sad Jazz: Sonnets, out
from Sheepmeadow Press.
Richard
Cecil has published four books of poetry, Einstein’s
Brain (University of Utah Press 1986); Alcatraz
(Purdue University Press 1992), selected by Gerald Stern as the winner of
the Verna Emery Poetry Competition; In
Search of the Great Dead (Southern Illinois University Press 1999),
winner of the Crab Orchard Award Series; and Twenty
First Century Blues (Southern Illinois University Press 2004).
His poems have appeared in Poetry,
American Poetry Review, Ploughshares,
Georgia Review, Southern
Review, New England Review
and many other magazines. His
work has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s
Almanac. He teaches in the
Department of English and the Honors College of Indiana University, as
well as in the Spalding University Brief Residency MFA Program.
Roger
Green is an English poet living on the Greek
island
of
Hydra
. Among his publications are
several books of poetry, including With
It or On It (2000). His
translation of the Akathistos Hymn by Romanos the Melodist was published in 1987.
His recent book, Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen
(Basic Books), is a “fantastically discursive ode to obsession
and myth, relayed in a series of digressions that prove far more
illuminating-and life-affirming-than the facts laid bare.”
He has also published a new collection, The Pyrofani Poems.
Adrianne
Kalfopoulou lives in
Athens
where she teaches literature at the Hellenic
American University.
. She also teaches in the Scottish Universities Summer Schools
Program at the
University
of
Edinburgh
. Her publications include a
poetry collection, Wild Greens,
and a critical study, The Untidy
House, a discussion of women's subversive discourses in American
literature. Her memoir, Broken
Greek: a Language to Belong, is available from Plain View Press, and
can be ordered at www.plainviewpress.net.
Dinos
Siotis was born in Tinos in 1944, studied Law at the
University
of
Athens
and Comp Lit at
San francisco
State
. He lived in
San Francisco
from 1971 to 1982 where he worked as a janitor, journalist, printer while
being a political activist againt the junta in
Greece
. He worked as Press Counselor for the Embassy of Greece in
Ottawa
(1982-1988),
New York
(1988-1990) and
Boston
(1997-2004). He published and edited ten political and/or literary
magazines, 15 collections of poetry in Greek, English and French, a novel
and two collections of short stories. He now edits (de)kata a literary
review in Greek.
A.E.
(Alicia) Stallings is a widely-published, award-winning American poet
residing in
Greece
. Her work has twice been included in the Best
American Poetry series (1994, 2000), and has been awarded a Pushcart
Prize. Her collection, Archaic Smile,
won the 1999 Richard Wilbur Award. She
has a verse translation of Lucretius’ De
Rerum Natura just out from Penguin Classics, and a second collection
of verse, Hapax, out from
Northwestern/TriQuarterly.
Nick
Papandreou has published a novel called Father
Dancing with Penguin UK (1996). In the United States it appeared under
the St Martins/Picador imprint (1998) and was shortlisted for the 1999 Los
Angeles Times First Fiction Award. Stories and essays have appeared
such journals as The Threepenny
Review, Agni, Quarterly West, Harvard Review, Indiana Review, as well
as in Canadian journals such as Quarry
and Wascana Review, and in
Greek journals - LEXI, Nea
Poreia, Entefktirion, and
elsewhere. His third book is KLEPTOMNEMON.
He lives in Greece.
Nick Papandreou at a poetry reading
The
full Poetry Program is three weeks. Participants with limited time can
enroll for the first week, or first two weeks only. Fees for tuition and
housing would be reduced accordingly.
As
part of the Poetry Program two hours of instruction in basic
modern Greek is provided each week tailored specially to the poetry
workshop. A optional trip to the archaeological site of Mycenae in the
Argolid is offered. ( Eu 35 bus and boat fee)
Instructors
A.E.
(Alicia) Stallings resides
in Athens. Her first collection, Archaic Smile, (University of
Evansville) won the Richard Wilbur Award (1999). Her work has twice
been included in the Best American Poetry Series (1994, 2000), and has
received a Pushcart Prize. She has also received the Eunice Tietjens
Prize from Poetry Magazine and the James Dickey Prize from Five Points.
Her work has appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Hudson Review,
Shenandoah, The Yale Review, The Formalist, et al., and has often been
featured at the web site Poetry Daily (www.poems.com).
She is at work on a verse translation of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura for
Penguin Classics. You can visit her web site at: www.geocities.com/aestallings.
Participants
Participants
in the poetry seminar include poets, students, and teachers from all over
Europe, the U.S. and other countries. They range in age from 17 to past
retirement. Instruction is designed to be of benefit both to writers and
teachers of poetry, from the novice to advanced, published poets.
Program
dates
Summer
session program dates:
June
14-July 4, 2009
Accommodation
Participants
will be housed in island villas in single or double room accommodation.
The rooms have air-conditioning , private bathrooms and
kitchenettes.
The
villas are walking distance from the beach and many local tavernas (
restaurants).
Meals
Breakfast
is provided Monday through Friday on the sea front.. Numerous tavernas, cafes and restaurants serve meals throughout
the day and night. Greek food, , Greek salads, are all
relatively inexpensive.
Fees
Fees
for the 2009 session:
Tuition
Eu1280 for the three week session
Single room Eu 1140
Double room Eu 680 per person
Fees
include:
All
classes and workshops and cultural events.
Information
folder with maps, program bulletin and information about the island.
Bi-lingual
program advisor on Spetses.
A
Certificate of Attendance
Fees
can be paid by personal check, bank draft, or direct transfer to the
Athens Centre account.
Refunds
Housing
and program fees are refundable in full prior to the beginning
of the workshop. No fees are refunded after June 10, 2009
The
Island of Spetses
Located about 2 fours by hydrofoil from Piraeus, the port
of Athens, Spetses retains its intrinsic island charm. The
neoclassical architecture, the horses and carriages, the abundant greenery
and its clean inviting beaches make the island a pleasure to be on.The
island of Spetses is a convenient base for travel to Athens, the
Peloponnese (Epidaurus, Mycenae, Nauplio, etc.), and the isles of the
Saronic gulf.
Spetses has been inhabited since pre- historic times.
Its sea captains, among them, the war heroine Bouboulina, fought in the
War of Independence against the Turks in 1821. The island is also rich in
natural beauty, and crowned with pine forests. John Fowles' novel, The
Magus, is set on the island.
