Writers tackle Jackson Pollock and more at the Columbia Museum of Art
January 23, 2019
CMA Writer-in-Residence Ray McManus kicking off a literary program last April
Upcoming literary programs feature writers responding to art on view
Literary programs are in full swing at the Columbia Museum of Art under the creative vision of CMA Writer-in-Residence Ray McManus. The next few weeks feature two programs in which writers and poets respond to the major exhibition Jackson Pollock: Mural as well as the dynamic CMA collection.
Tender Savages: The Masculine Construction of Jackson Pollock’s Destruction
Sunday, January 27 | 3:00 p.m.
Known for their grit, writers David Joy, Adam Vines, and Ray McManus read from their latest works and discuss the mythos of masculine selfhood as embodied in the art of Jackson Pollock. Free with membership or admission.
Joy is the author of the Edgar Award-nominated novel Where All Light Tends To Go as well as the novels The Weight Of This World and The Line That Held Us and the memoirGrowing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey, which was a finalist for the Reed Environmental Writing Award and the Ragan Old North State Award. His latest short stories and essays have appeared in Time, The New York Times Magazine, Garden & Gun, and The Bitter Southerner.
Vines is an associate professor of English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he is editor of the Birmingham Poetry Review. He is the author of Out of Speechand The Coal Life and coauthor of Day Kink and According to Discretion. Vines has published recently or has poems forthcoming in Ecotone, The Hopkins Review, Five Points, Southwest Review, Green Mountains Review, 32 Poems, and The Greensboro Review. During the summers, he is on staff at The Sewanee Writers’ Conference.
McManus is the author of three books of poetry: Punch, Red Dirt Jesus, and Driving through the Country before You Are Born. His poetry has been published recently in SC Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Talking River. McManus is a professor of English at the University of South Carolina Sumter, where he directs the South Carolina Center for Oral Narrative.
“As David Joy stated in a tweet, ‘reading in front of Pollock’s mural will most likely be the coolest thing I’ll do all year.’ That feeling is echoed by Adam and myself,” says McManus. “The audience is in for a real heart-to-heart reading and discussion about masculinity in art, our art, and the world around us. I’m telling you, this is going to be a wild two hours of good literature, stories, and Jackson Pollock.”
The Write Around Series: Nathalie Anderson and Len Lawson
Sunday, February 10 | 3:00 p.m.
Join award-winning poets Nathalie Anderson and Len Lawson as they share work inspired by the dynamic themes of the newly installed collection galleries. The Write Around Series features poetry and prose inspired by the art in the museum. Supported by South Carolina Humanities. Free with membership or admission.
Columbia native Anderson is an award-winning poet, accomplished librettist, and professor of English literature at Swarthmore College. Her books of poetry include Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers, Quiver, Stain, and the chapbook Held and Firmly Bound, published in 2017 by Columbia’s Muddy Ford Press. Her poems have appeared in such journals asAtlanta Review, DoubleTake, Natural Bridge, The New Yorker, and The Recorder. Anderson has authored libretti for four operas — The Black Swan, Sukey in the Dark, an operatic version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia, and children’s opera The Royal Singer — all in collaboration with composer Thomas Whitman. Anderson has taught for 36 years at Swarthmore, where she serves as Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor in the Department of English Literature and directs the Program in Creative Writing.
Lawson is the author of the debut collection Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019), the chapbookBefore the Night Wakes You (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and co-editor of Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (Muddy Ford Press, 2017). He is a Ph.D. student in English literature and criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. In 2016 Lawson won Jasper Magazine’s Artist of the Year Award in literary arts and was named among “Ten South Carolina Poets to Watch” by Richland Library in 2018. He has received fellowships fromCallaloo, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the 2018 Susan Laughter Meyers Poetry Fellowship at Weymouth from the North Carolina Poetry Society. His poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Thrush Poetry Journal, [PANK], Winter Tangerine Review, and Mississippi Review. He currently teaches English at the University of South Carolina Sumter.
“What I love about Nathalie’s work is how unpretentious it is, how real it feels,” says McManus. “The way she is able to add voice to those who have been traditionally written outside of history — whether through paintings and sculptures or her own family history — is simply amazing. Audiences are in for a real treat when Nathalie reads! And Len has an uncanny gift of being able to weave recent news and pop culture and history into a poetic significance that leaves audiences speechless. He’s a force! I’m genuinely excited to not only see what these two come up with in their poetic responses to the artwork in the galleries, but to just hear them read together. This is going to a fanatic show!”
For more information, visit columbiamuseum.org
