Jesse and Erica Wright to Discuss Charles Wright’s BLACK ZODIAC on April 25th

Jesse Graves and Erica Wright will discuss Charles Wright’s Black Zodiac in a Facebook Live event on Thursday, April 25th, 2024 at 6:30 CDT. The event will be hosted by Chapter 16 and Humanities Tennessee as part of their year-long celebration for Humanities Tennessee’s 50th anniversary. The event is free, and no registration is required.

For more information on the event, or to attend, please see Chapter 16’s Facebook event page.

From Humanities Tennessee’s event page:
Join us for an online discussion of Charles Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection “Black Zodiac,” featuring Erica Wright and Jesse Graves. This conversation is part of a yearlong series celebrating the 50th anniversary of Humanities Tennessee.

Erica Wright is the author of four crime novels and two poetry collections. Her essay collection Snake was released in 2020. Hollow Bones is forthcoming from Severn House in August 2024. Wright grew up in Wartrace, Tennessee, and now lives in Knoxville.

Jesse Graves grew up in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, where his ancestors settled in the 1780s. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry Writing from Cornell University, and PhD in English from The University of Tennessee, and he teaches as Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at East Tennessee State University.

Jesse’s TENNESSEE LANDSCAPE WITH BLIGHTED PINE Celebrates its Tenth Anniversary With a New Edition!

Jesse’s 2011 collection of poems, Tennessee Landscape With Blighted Pine, is celebrating its tenth anniversary with an expanded new release from Texas Review Press! The new version includes twelve new poems and a new introduction written by fellow poet Matthew Wimberley. The official release date is March 15th, 2022, and it is now available for purchase through Texas Review Press and most major retailers!

Purchase Options:
Texas Review Press
Amazon
Bookshop

From Texas Review Press: “First released in 2011, Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine was the debut poetry collection from Tennessee poet Jesse Graves and was awarded the 2011 Weatherford Award in Poetry from Berea College, the Book of the Year in Poetry Award from the Appalachian Writers’ Association, and the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing.
 
The poems in Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine take part in many of the traditions of lyric poetry, including elegies for lost loved ones, odes to the beauty of family and the natural world, expressed through a range of poetic forms and techniques.
 
The 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition includes twelve new poems and an introduction by Matthew Wimberley.”

Settings of Jesse’s Poems to be Performed with Readings by the Author at St. Hilda’s College on May 25th

Jesse will read his poems in a dual performance with composer Chris Ferebee, who will perform musical settings of Jesse’s poems. The event will take place in person in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building at St. Hilda’s College of Oxford University on Saturday, May 25th, 2024 at 7:30 PM. Tickets are £20 for the public or £5 for students.

For more information about the event, or to purchase tickets, please see either the JDP Music Building website or the Concert Diary website.

Image Courtesy of Jacqueline du Pré Music Building’s website

From the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building’s event page:

Chris Ferebee is a composer who founded the ensemble ‘Floyd’s Row’ when still a doctoral student here at St Hilda’s College. His haunting music combines elements of improvisation, minimalism, folk and early music. ‘Nightjar Songs’ explores the contemporary South through the paradox of a living past; ghosts and memories stand alongside birds, mountains, and the heat of the sun in exploring the idea of a ‘homeplace.’

Dr. Jesse Graves is a poet from Sharp’s Chapel, Tennessee, a community his ancestors settled in the 1780’s. He is poet-in-residence and a professor of English at East Tennessee State University where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in creative writing. Prior to taking up his post at ETSU, he studied at the University of Tennessee and Cornell University.

Prior to the performance to each setting, each poem will be read by the poet himself.

Jesse to Give Talk at Kingsport Public Library This Thursday, November 10th

Jesse will appear later this week to give an author talk on his four collections of poetry, at the Kingsport Public Library in Kingsport, Tennessee. The event will be held in the Kingsport Public Library’s Auditorium at 6:00 PM this Thursday, November 10th, 2022. This event is currently projected to be in-person only.

For more information, or to find directions, please see the Kingsport Public Library’s event page here or the Kingsport Public Library’s Facebook event page here.

Jesse to be Honored at Emory & Henry’s Literary Festival

Jesse will be the featured writer at Emory & Henry College’s Literary Festival later this week, November 3rd – 4th, 2022. Every year, Emory & Henry honors “a living writer with strong ties to the Appalachian region,” and they have featured writers such as Crystal Wilkinson, Fred Chappell, Lee Smith, and Ron Rash in the past (Emory & Henry Website). The festival is located on Emory & Henry’s main campus in Emory, Virginia, and it will be held in-person with no known online options at this time. A copy of the schedule can be found below!

For directions and more event details, please see Emory & Henry’s event page!

East Tennessee State University also asked Jesse about the event, to which he had this to say:

“I feel especially humbled and grateful to be recognized by the Emory & Henry College festival, as many of my mentors and my literary heroes, like Robert Morgan, Jeff Daniel Marion, Lee Smith and Charles Wright, have been their featured authors in the past,” said Graves. “For me, this celebration represents the essence of the warmth and fellowship in Appalachian literature, and I couldn’t be more honored to have my work set in the lineage of those writers who came here before me.” 

You can find ETSU’s press release on the Emory & Henry event here.

Schedule

Thursday, November 3rd

Jesse Graves’ Life, Work, & Poetry

Location: MCA, Black Box Theatre

Time: 10:30AM– 11:45AM

Writing the Homeplace in Appalachian Literature

Location: MCA, Black Box Theatre

Time: 1:30PM – 2:45PM

Setting the Homeplace to Music

Location: MCA, Black Box Theatre

Time: 3:30PM – 4:45PM

Reading & Book Signing

Location: MCA, Black Box Theatre

Time: 7:30PM

Friday, November 4th

Poet as Collaborator: Jesse Graves Scholarly Projects

Location: MCA, Black Box Theatre

Time: 10:30AM– 11:45AM

Public Interview

Location: MCA, Black Box Theatre

Time: 1:30PM – 2:45PM

Writing the Homeplace: Jesse Graves’ Craft Talk

Location: MCA, Black Box Theatre

Time: 3:30PM – 4:45PM

Jesse’s Poetry is Featured at the Reece Museum in “Appalachian Ancestors”

The Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University has crafted a delightful exhibit featuring poetry from Jesse’s 2022 Tennessee Landscape With Blighted Pine (Tenth Anniversary Edition). Alongside the poems, interpretations of the poems from students at the Governor’s School and museum staff appear with artifacts from the museum and/or borrowed from colleagues. The exhibit is called “Blighted Pine: Appalachian Ancestors” and will be available for viewing until September 23rd, 2022, during The Reece Museum’s regular operating hours.

The image of the exhibit belongs to The Reece Museum.

From The Reece Museum website: “Blighted Pine: Appalachian Ancestors is an exhibition that explores connections between past and present through living history installations and poetic interpretations. Beginning as a component of the Governor’s School for the Scientific Exploration of Tennessee Heritage, the original GOV’ HUB exhibition evolved into a larger project that brings ideas of memory and ancestory to the forefront. Please enjoy touring the various displays featuring artifacts from the Reece Museum permanent collection as well as loaned items from museum staff and colleagues. These displays are accompanied with selected poems from Jesse Graves’ 2022 book, Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine: Poems. Along with the poetry are interpretations made by Governor’s School students and museum staff. The coupling of these installations and writings create a unique atmosphere of familial nostalgia that evokes a sense of place and home— a connection to this region’s Appalachain ancestors.” 

Jesse’s New Edited Collection THE SOUTHERN POETRY ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME IX: VIRGINIA is Now Available for Pre-Order!

The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume IX: Virginia, edited by William Wright, Jesse Graves, Amy Wright, and J. Bruce Fuller, is now available for pre-order from its publisher, Texas Review Press! The anthology will be officially released on November 15th, 2022, and it should be available from all major retailers.

Purchase Options:
Texas Review Press
Amazon

From the publisher, Texas Review Press: “Home to extraordinary writers such as William Styron, Tom Wolfe, and Ellen Glasgow, the state of Virginia’s literary past is among the most prolific in the nation. Indeed, this state, with its beautiful and varied ecosystems—Appalachia, Chesapeake Bay, the Shenandoah Valley, and Virginia’s beautiful beaches, just to name a few—seem to serve as the landscapes from which equally varied and nutritive writers spring, from the lyrical, often ecstatic meditations of Charles Wright to the poignant, dynamic narratives and lyrics of Ellen Bryant Voigt, from the moving narratives of Rita Dove to the formal mastery and wit of R. T. Smith.

Series Editor William Wright, along with Volume Editors J. Bruce Fuller, Jesse Graves, and Amy Wright, have collaborated to bring readers a wide-ranging survey in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume IX: Virginia. This volume seeks to emphasize the uniqueness of the poetic voices of Virginia. In doing so, the editors have acknowledged and included many celebrated writers from the recent past as well as relatively new, diverse voices that reiterate the literary fecundity of one of the most beautiful, revered, and complicated states in the American South.”

MTSU’s “In Process” to Host Jesse in September 2022

Middle Tennessee State University has invited Jesse to appear at their “In Process” Creative Writing Events Series on September 15th, 2022! The event will be held on MTSU’s main Murfreesboro, Tennessee campus in the Sam H. Ingram Building at 4:30 PM (CST). As of right now, there will not be a Zoom recording available. Dr. Gaylord Brewer will host, and the event is free and open to the public! Jesse will read and discuss poetry for the duration.

Please see MTSU’s In Process website for directions to the campus or for more events in their Creative Writing series.

Jesse to Host Two Workshops at the Virginia Highlands Festival on July 29th

The Virginia Highlands Festival will host an all-day event on July 29th, 2022, in Abingdon, Virginia with both on-site and online via Zoom options. The VHF theme this year is “Diversity in Appalachia.” The Virginia Highlands Festival celebrates Appalachian literature with writing workshops on fiction, poetry, and writing mechanics, and it “focuses on established and emerging writers, poets, and authors who share our diverse culture with the world” (VHF Website).

Jesse will host two different workshops at this event! Please find more details on tickets below or on the Virginia Highlands Festival website.

Session One Workshop (10:00 AM – 12:00 PM) on “Narrative Poetry” by Jesse Graves:
“This workshop offers several prompts and examples designed to bring narrative elements into new poems, stories, or personal essays, giving writers the opportunity to explore historical and character-driven topics, as well as their own personal subject matter. The impulse to tell stories through poetry goes back to Homer and the Greek epics, and continues to play an essential, if under-examined, role in contemporary poetry. Participants will read and discuss poems by such poets as Joy Harjo, Philip Levine, Ruth Stone, and Natasha Tretheway. Writers will leave this session with new material, and thoughts and suggestions on how to revise those ideas into finished works.” (Info. from VHF Website)

Session Two Workshop (1:15 PM – 2:45 PM) on “Authentic Voice” by Jesse Graves:

“Jesse Graves will teach a workshop about finding voice, a permanent concern for writers and poets. Writing prompts and examples will bring elements of voice into new writing, giving writers the opportunity to explore historical and character-driven topics as well as their own personal subject matter. The workshop is for writers of all genres.” (Info. from VHF Website)

It’s bound to be a fantastic event! If you’re interested in attending either in-person or on Zoom, tickets are $40 and can be purchased online or on-site the day of the event.

Jesse’s Edited Collection on Essays about Robert Morgan is Now Available!

You can now order McFarland’s Robert Morgan: Essays on the Life and Work, edited by Robert M. West and Jesse Graves! The official publication date is June 8th, 2022, and the collection of essays is available from McFarland and most major retailers.

Purchase Options:
McFarland
Amazon
Bookshop

From the publisher, McFarland: “For more than fifty years Robert Morgan has brought to life the landscape, history and culture of the Southern Appalachia of his youth. In 30 acclaimed volumes, including poetry, short story collections, novels and nonfiction prose, he has celebrated an often marginalized region. His many honors include four NEA Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as television appearances (The Best American Poetry: New Stories from the South, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards). This first book on Morgan collects appreciations and analyses by some of his most dedicated readers, including fellow poets, authors, critics and scholars. An unpublished interview with him is included, along with an essay by him on the importance of sense of place, and a bibliography of publications by and about him.”