Carolyne Wright & Allison Eir Jenks

7/10/2002 – 7/10/2002

Consider how landscape informs who we are and how we relate to others – inhabitants, ambassadors, sojourners, refugees. As we move through a variety of places we rewrite our relationship to the worlds around us and within us.

Carolyne Wright’s poetry and translations encompass an expanse of space. Studying as a Fullbright Fellow, she translated the work of Bangladeshi women poets and writers. She also translated the work of Chilean poet Jorge Teillier. Her most recent collection of original work, Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire (Lynx House Press), was selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 1999 Blue Lynx Poetry Prize, of which he wrote,”[This book] explodes into a multiple reflection of territories, cultures, flesh, and mind.” In addition, Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire recieved the 2001 Oklahoma Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Ms Wright currently teaches at the University of Oklahoma.

Chicago native, Allison Eir Jenks has written poems based in France, Italy, Spain and Ireland as well as more domestic terrains. She invites her readers into “a world she knows intimately and has made almost familiar if not entirtely safe.” A James A. Michener Fellow, she recieved her MFA from the University of Miami and is a PhD candidate at Florida State University. Her second collection of poetry, Palace of Bones (Ohio University Press) was selcted by Pulitzer Prize winner Carolyn Kizer for the 2001 Hollis Summers Prize. Her poems, essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies

Performers

Carolyne Wright & Allison Eir Jenks