Slash Pine

Joseph P. Wood - In What I Have
Done & What I Have Failed to Do

I'm in Tuscaloosa today and tomorrow for the Slash Pine Press Writers Hike. Drove down yesterday afternoon from Knoxville with a student from my Intro Poetry Writing class. It's a really great program Joseph Wood has set up here. He contacts Southern poets that are just embarking on their careers, asks them to come read, and to bring promising undergrads to participate in a collaborative poetry project with undergrad poetry students from U of Alabama.

In a few minutes I'll meet up with some of the Alabama undergrads and my student, and we're going to head out to the Cahaba Wilderness Preserve where the undergrads are going to make a poetry film in which they will read/perform their work "in the wild." It promises to be fantastic. What an opportunity for these students, and for me to work with them and hear their poems.

Heidi Lynn Staples - Dog Girl

Met MC Hyland briefly last night, and then got to meet Heidi Lynn Staples who brought a van load of students down from U of Georgia. Great conversation. Feels a little bit like AWP in the sense of camaraderie between writers.

Now, if we can only figure out how to bring this up to Knoxville. Who'se interested in working with me and Joseph to do a similar program at Tennessee next spring?

(Apparently Facebook is blocked here, so even though I'm posting this entry on Facebook, I won't be able to see or respond to any comments. Feel free to post any comments on the blog or email me. Thanks!)