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Recently Updated for 2008: Click here for : New READINGS
Linda Annas Ferguson's book, Bird Missing from One Shoulder, was selected for an honorable mention in the
2008 Brockman-Campbell Poetry Book Award presented by the North Carolina Poetry Society. Here is
what judge Kwame Dawes had to say about Linda's book.
"It is art that turns the hardships and tragedies of our lives into something quite beautiful—something that ultimately teaches us of the alchemy of poetry. Linda Annas Ferguson’s poetry in this collection never succumbs to the temptations of sentimentality and self-indulgence, even as she writes these moving poems about loss and memory. She looks back at loved ones with a clear-eyed sense of detail, a quest to find the poem where it is and not where we want it to be. This is a skill that good poems eventually master. Simply put, these are beautiful poems—well-shaped, carefully considered and wonderfully imagined:
It is when you can’t hear
the sound of yourself
that you know who you are,
a body, no longer solid
standing in an ocean.
The sun, a hole in your world
where time burns through."
Kwame Dawes, Director, SC Poetry Initiative and the Distinguished Poet-in-Residence, University of South Carolina
The winner of this competition was Becky Gould Gibson for her book, Need Fire and the other honorable mention was Barbara Presnell, for her book, Piece Work. Congratulations Barbara and Becky.
Linda Annas Ferguson's poetry book, Bird Missing from One Shoulder, was also selected for an honorable mention in the
2008 Oscar Arnold Young Book Award of the Poetry Council of North Carolina. A poem from her book will be printed in the 2008 Edition of Bay Leaves. The Judge was Sally Keith, MFA Faculty, George Mason University.The Winner of this competition was Janice Moore Fuller, for her book Séance. Second place went to Keith Flynn for his book, The Golden Ratio.
Congratulations Janice and Keith.
Linda's poetry will appear in a new anthology, Beyond Forgetting: Poems and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease, (Kent State University Press) edited by Holly Hughes with an introduction by Tess Gallagher.
Poets included in the anthology are:
Judith H. Montgomery, Candace Pearson, Bruce Berger, Rachel Dacus, Alice Derry, Brian Daldorph, Lorene Delany-Ullman, Drew Myron, Joseph Green, Sean Nevin, Judith Barrington, Ryan G. Van Cleave, Arlene Ang, Linda Alexander, Ellen Kirvin Dudis, Jim Natal, Tess Gallagher, Larry D. Thomas, Len Roberts, Carolyn A. Dahl, Sean Nevin, Melanie Martin, Scott Peterson, Martha Modena Vertreace-Doody, Andrew Riutta, Rachel Dacus, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Sheryl L. Nelms, Andrena Zawinski, Gary Thompson, Barry Spacks, Dave Parsons, Penny Harter, Richard Beban, Chris Tusa, Peter Seidman, Cora Spindler, E. A. Axelborg, Gary Young, Mary Zeppa, Ron Pies, Ethna McKiernan, Stephen Mead, Jeff Worley, Tim Myers, Maureen Owens, Persis Knobbe, Jane Alynn, Gilbert Allen, Esther Altshul Helfgott, Ailsa Kennedy Steinert, Mark Thalman, Linda Annas Ferguson, Elizabeth Farrell, Allan Douglass Coleman, Catherine Wiley, Rob Hardy, John Grey, John Davis, Jan Harrington, Holly J. Hughes, Claire Keyes, M. J. Iuppa, Judith Arcana, Arthur Ginsberg, Edward Hirsch, David Mason, Nancy Dahlberg, Denise Calvetti Michaels, Jayne Pupek, Kay Mullen, Madelyn Garner, Kate Bernadette Benedict, Nancy Dahlberg, Marion Boyer, Margot Wizansky, Holly Zeeb, Shebana Coelho, Diane Porter Goff, Barbara S. Simpson, Tina Welling, Mary Barrett, Sybil Lockhart, Christine Higgins, Nina Corwin, Sarah Leavitt, Donna Wahlert, Rick Kempa, Joel McCollough, Dan Bellm, Elizabeth Garton Scanlon, Marion Boyer, Cathleen Calbert, Nancy Tupper Ling, Joanne Clarkson, Elizabeth Cohen, Margot Wizansky, Linda Alexander, Theodore Deppe, Ellen Kirvin Dudis, Kenith Simmons, Paulann Petersen, David Mason, Judy Kronenfeld, Joan I. Siegel, Kake Huck, Ellen Kirvin Dudis, Marie Bahlke, Susan Ludvigson, Paulann Petersen, Gary Thompson, and Pamela Miller Ness,
Bird Missing from One Shoulder, Linda's full book of poetry, is now available
More information: Book Page
March 13, 2007: 12 Noon
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS READING
Poetry at Noon Series
Thomas Jefferson Building
Mary Pickford Theater: 3rd Floor
Linda will read from her work on the subject of "Forgiveness."
Latest chapbook
Stepping on Cracks in the Sidewalk
(read a sample poem from this book)
Linda's chapbook, Stepping on Cracks in the Sidewalk, is available for purchase : ORDER
“Linda Ferguson’s elegiac poems about her father and mother, both of whom worked in textile mills, capture the lives of a dying generation of southern laborers. They came from the farms and hills to the small towns, married and raised their children, and worked loyally at their jobs until the jobs were no more. When her father returns from his last night on the graveyard shift, “white lint clinging to his hair / like a disintegrated halo,” we celebrate the unsung heroism of these men and women whom Ferguson depicts with the love of a daughter and the sure hand of a mature poet.”
--- R. S. GWYNN, author of No Word of Farwell
Reading Linda Annas Ferguson’s poems is like watching a good documentary. I believe what I see: real images, real memories. And I believe in this poet’s commitment to preserving the truth--however hard or bleak--about her parents’ lives, her personal history. I am moved by the intimacy of these poems.
---DAVID TRINIDAD, author of Plasticville and The Late Show
New Poetry Anthology forthcoming Summer, 2007
The Southern Poetry Anthology: South Carolina
Texas Review Press
Linda's work is included in the new anthology Southern Mist published by Old Mountain Press.
ISBN:
978-1-884778-42-1
Authors include: J.S. Absher, Sandra Ervin Adams, Kathrine Russell Barnes, Frederick Bassett, Joann Bishop, Thomasa Bonners, Stuart Burroughs, Mary Margaret Carlisle, Jim Clark, Ed Cockrell, Frank Craddock, Russell Crews, Patricia Daharsh, Phebe Davidson, Polly Davis, Tom Davis, Terri Kirby Erickson, Sue Farlow, Linda Annas Ferguson, Ann Fogelman, Dare Freeman Ford, Tom Gluzinski, Marian Gowan, Phyllis Jean Green, Kerri Mai Habben, Ken Habben, Ken Hada, Kristina Hall, Maxine Carey Harker, Joseph Haymore, Maura High, Jackie W. Jackson, Jerry Judge, Debra Kaufman, K.D. Kennedy, Jr., Jo Koster, Blanche L. Ledford, Brenda Kay Ledford, Suzanne Baldwin Leitner, Maria Lund, Michael H. Lythdoe, Al Manning, David T. Manning, Stephen Miles, Paul C. Mitchell, Rebecca J. Mitchell, Jerome Norris, Martha Oquinn, Margaret L. Parrish, Patricia Podlipec, Michael Potts, Edwina Rooker, Dr. Lynn Veach Sadler, Joanna Catherine Scott, Martha Sisk, Sybil Austin Skakle, Warren Slesinger, Linda M. Smith, Susan Sonnen, Dorothea Spiegel, Tonya Staufer, Cassie Premo Steele, Dennis Ward Stiles, Nancy Dew Taylor, Katherine Tracy, Chris Vierck, Betty Watson, Gail White, Charles "Hawk" Weyant, Glenda Sumner Wilkins, Barbara Ledford Wright,
Bird Missing from One Shoulder, was a finalist in the Holland Prize at Logan House Press.
Stepping on Cracks in the Sidewalk, was 1st runner-up in the Robert Phillips Prize at the Texas Review Press, judged by R. S. Gwynn.
Stepping on Cracks in the Sidewalk was also a finalist in the White Eagle Coffee Store Press judged by John Surowiecki.
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