F278. Good Grief

Supreme Court, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four
Friday, February 10, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

 

Faced with the loss of a loved one, people struggle with overwhelming emotions and feelings of disorientation, often vacillating between anger and despair, and at times reaching a state of acceptance and gratitude. This panel investigates the role of poetry in articulating and transforming one’s loss, exploring how poetry can translate the intimacy of grief into a shared experience between author and reader. Four writers share their recent work and discuss their navigation of the grief process.


Participants

Moderator:

Heidi Lynn Staples is the author of three poetry collections and the memoir Take Care Fake Bear Torque Cake. Coeditor of Big Energy Poets: Ecopoetry Thinks Climate Change, she teaches in the MFA program at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

Janet Holmes is author of The ms of my Kin, F2F, Humanophone, The Green Tuxedo, and The Physicist at the Mall. A professor in the MFA Program for Creative Writing at Boise State University, she has directed and edited Ahsahta Press, an all-poetry press, since 1999.

Steven Karl is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Dork Swagger and Sister, as well as several chapbooks and collaborative chapbooks. He teaches writing at Florida International University.

Prageeta Sharma is the author of four poetry collections: Bliss to Fill, The Opening Question, Infamous Landscapes, and the recent Undergloom. She was a recipient of the 2010 Howard Foundation Award. She is a professor of English at the University of Montana.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center