Natalie Patterson

The New Poetry Review: An American Sunrise

NATALIE PATTERSON An American Sunrise Joy Harjo 2019 Joy Harjo’s latest full-length poetry collection begins with a prologue and a map. “On May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson unlawfully signed the Indian Removal Act to force move southeastern peoples from our homelands to the West. We were rounded up with what we could carry.” The […]

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Center for Women Writers Hosts Embodiment Panel

NATALIE PATTERSON On Friday, Oct. 18, Metta-Sáma and the Center for Women Writers welcomed poets Cameron Awkward-Rich, Rosebud Ben-Oni and Brenda Iijima, as well as self-identified diarist and anti-poet Kenyatta JP García, to each present a talk on the topic of embodiment. In her introduction of the writers, Metta-Sáma explained that the Embodiment Panel was […]

by The Salemite

The New Poetry Review: Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky

NATALIE PATTERSON Deaf Republic Ilya Kaminsky 2019 Ilya Kaminsky’s much-anticipated second collection is an intricately crafted narrative that orbits the question of silence—silence in a time of unrest, political upheaval, and state violence. Winner of a Whiting Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union and […]

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The New Poetry Review: The Best American Poetry 2019

NATALIE PATTERSON The Best American Poetry 2019 Major Jackson, Guest Editor David Lehman, Series Editor Though the question, “What is the best poetry in America?” is virtually impossible to answer, the Best American Poetry series seeks nonetheless to compile some of the finest American poems in one volume each year, edited by a different renowned […]

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The Center for Women Writers welcomes Natalie Eilbert and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

NATALIE PATTERSON Salem professor Metta-Sáma Melvin and the Center for Women Writers hosted poet Natalie Eilbert and author Mecca Jamilah Sullivan on Friday, March 1st, as a part of the Beverley Pritchard Lecture Series. The writers were each informally introduced by Metta-Sáma before presenting a short lecture on their work and on writing and performing […]

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The New Poetry Review: Oculus by Sally Wen Mao

NATALIE PATTERSON Oculus Sally Wen Mao 2019 Sally Wen Mao’s second poetry collection, Oculus, is a meeting of past, present, and future, at once a work of historical imagination and speculation for the digital age. Mao, born in Wuhan, China and raised in northern California, crafts an immense undertaking with Oculus, weaving together contemplations of […]

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Tell Me the Good News

NATALIE PATTERSON These days, it’s easy to feel like everything is bad. And by “everything,” I mean politics, the environment, staggering rates of mental illness, diseases in our food, a dead Mars rover, the crushing social constraints of society, your highlighter looking a little splotchy, etc., etc. Little do you know, good things are happening […]

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What’s in the Salem College Archives?

NATALIE PATTERSON AND SAV FRANZ The Archives is Salem College’s most fascinating, yet also most underutilized, corner resource, and it is located right under our feet in the basement of Gramley library. The Archives is a treasure trove of intimate histories and artifacts from Salem’s years of antiquity. It is run by Terry Collins and […]

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The New Poetry Review: Wade in the Water

NATALIE PATTERSON Wade in the Water Tracy K. Smith 2018 With “Wade in the Water” comes another vibrant and profound collection from Tracy K. Smith, Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize-winner for one of her previous books, “Life on Mars.” The much-awarded Smith presents in four sections thoughts on a surprisingly wide […]

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The Center for Women Writers Hosts Holly Goddard Jones and Lavinia Jackson

NATALIE PATTERSON On Sept. 28, the Salem College Center for Women Writers (CWW) hosted an event in Gramley Library as a part of their NC Writers Showcase Series. Novelist Holly Goddard Jones, author of “The Salt Line”, and poet Lavinia Jackson, writer of “Poetry in Plain Sight,” were invited to read from their books and […]