Composer Wendy Mae Chambers: Dreams, Death, Music & Marie Laveau

Christal Cooper – 1,511 Words

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             COMPOSER WENDY MAE CHAMBERS

                              www.wendymae.com

      DREAMS, DEATH, MUSIC & MARIE LAVEAU

“She’s the 20^th Century Berlioz, with a huge sonic imagination

no average concert hall can contain . . . acoustically unprecedented.”

Kyle Gann, the Village Voice, June of 1994.

World known composer Wendy Chambers’ first bond with art was when she was eight years old and her mother had her take painting lessons.  Now Chambers is an avid painter and each of her paintings sell a minimum of $1000. 

When composer Wendy Mae Chambers was sixteen years old she knew her calling was to be a musician.

     “My brother who is eight years older than me played the piano and I guess I heard from him and that’s how I got started.”

Now she is known as the “20^th Century Berlioz”

After graduating from high school in New Jersey, Chambers made the decision to leave New Jersey for New York City so she could study classical music at Barnard College.  She received full support from her father.

     “My father was always there to help me begin something and finish it.  He let me do whatever I was interested in.  He was interested in my dreams coming true.”

While at Barnard College she studied the piano with musician Kenneth Cooper and received her Bachelor’s Degree in classical music in 1975.  In 1977 she received her Master’s Degree in Composition from SUNY at Stony Brook.

Her first claim to fame was Music For Choreographed Rowboats, performed in 1979 in which 16 musicians are in rowboats oared by the Columbia University crew team at New York City’s Central Park Lake.    

     “The idea first came to me in a dream about tubas as passengers in pedal boats playing music.  I wanted to do the tubas on pedal boats but Central Park only had rowboats so we used rowboats.”

The inspiration for Chamber’s piece The Car Horn Organ also came to her in a dream.

         “I was hearing an incredible symphony with these massive beautiful chords, totally sustained and gradually shifting into other chords.  As I woke up I realized I was hearing a huge traffic jam on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.”

         The dream inspired Chambers to build a 25-note organ out of car horns, and featured its first debut at a parking lot by an orchestra of cars performing versions of “The Star Spangled Banner” and “New York, New York”.

         Chamber’s wonderful instrument invention was featured in The Smithsonian Magazine.

When Chambers turned 21, her father not only brought her her first legal cocktail but also introduced her to his family roots and his home state of Louisiana.   

     “I was immediately seduced by the French Quarter.  I fantasized about living there.  My father’s first cousin was Lyle Saxon, Cousin Lyle, is mentioned at the French Quarter walking tours.  He was dubbed Mr. New Orleans for his efforts with the revitalization of the French Quarter and his enthusiastic support for Mardi Gras.”

         Saxon was also the state director of the Louisiana Writers’ Project of the WPA.  He hired good friend and writer Robert Tallant as a writer for the project.  

     “Lyle Saxon’s obituary was found among Robert Tallant’s papers.  Tallant wrote a book called Voodoo In New Orleans and a novel about Marie Laveau.  He did extensive research, collected interviews, and press clippings about voodoo and Marie Laveau.”

“I first heard the name Marie Laveau when I visited the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum as a tourist.   When I turned 41, I bought a house in the French Quarter at 922 St. Ann St., just one block from where the famous voodoo queen once lived.  Marie Laveau had lived at what is now 1020 St. Ann Street. I would sit at my window that opened out into St. Ann Street and hear tour guides talk about her as they headed down the street.  One day I realized that this would be a great subject for a musical.  You can’t make up stuff like this.”

Chambers then began her quest for putting Voodoo and the life of Marie Laveau to music.   Chambers knew she’d have to do some research, but then realized that most of her research had already been completed by Saxon and Tallant.  

       “I struck a gold vein.  Finally I did my own historical research and included the more dramatic happenings of the day.”

Chambers then wrote her yet-to-be published and yet-to-be-performed musical, Voodoo in the Bayou, based on the life and death of Marie Laveau, and New Orleans Voodoo, which is a blend of West African religion and Catholicism.

         “The music is poetry set to music.  It’s still not complete. I’ve been writing it for the past twelve years.”

Voodoo On The Bayou is the true story of Maria Laveau the Voodoo Queen of the 19^th century New Orleans told from stories, interviews and newspaper articles about her and her Voodoo practices.  The musical brings Laveau, Voodoo life, and Voodoo deities (called Loahs and closely paired with Catholic Saints) to life through vignettes punctuated with voodoo dancing and drumming.  It is the story of a magical person with a spirit that refused to die. 

     “Researching Marie Laveau brought me to the Voodoo Spiritual Temple where I met Priestess Miriam.  I had a reading with her to tap into the spirit of Marie Laveau.  I attended Voodoo Symposiums in New Orleans.”

The musical moves back and fourth between present day and the time of Marie Laveau and it switches between the spiritual realm and the real world through the incorporation of voodoo deities as characters and traditional voodoo ceremonies.  In two acts we see Maria evolving into a nurse during the Yellow Fever Epidemic where her skills are put to the test.  We see her praying for those in church who are sick.  We see her experiencing pain and suffering for those who come to her for help.  We experience her life as a half African American and half Creole working as a hairstylist, and finally a voodoo practitioner.  Then comes the cemetery tour where the audience encounters her gravesite and the voodoo deities who reside there.  

         “What is true and what is not?  You can just imagine the true stories told about a voodoo queen.  When I realized that it was not up to me to decide this, I got the idea of how to truly tell her story and that was through the eyes of others.  Now you can decide the truth for yourself.  All of the stories in “Voodoo on the Bayou” are, of course, purported to be true.”

Chambers, during her research for Voodoo On The Bayou also consulted with Sallie Ann Glassman, the creator of The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot Cards.  

When Chambers learned of her mentor and musician John Cage’s death in August of 1992, she wrote a memorial for him inspired by Glassman’s New Orleans Voodoo Tarot Cards.  12 Squared is a tone poem for 12 percussionists in eleven movements.

Chambers was featured on CNN, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, and Performance Today.  She produced a PBS and Learning Channel television series titled VIDEOVILLE for five years.  She’s been awarded Two National Endowment for the Arts grants, an American Composer Forum Commission Grant, a CAPS grant, and is the founder of Artmusic Inc.

     “Being a composer is much like being storyteller.  You have to have a beginning, middle and an end.  Being a composer does not require knowing how to play every single instrument; but rather requires understanding of the various instruments and the language of music.”

     Chambers’ other music creations include Real Music, 1978, for 9 cars; Street Music, 1978, for 30 musicians and coordinated radio broadcast based on the theme from Close Encounters;  The Kitchen, 1978, for nine performers on pots and pans and three performers preparing food; Busy Box Quartet, 1980, for four crib toys; Clean Sweep, 1980, for nine vacuum cleaners;  Prime Time, 1980, for nine televisions; The Village Green, 1980, for three marching bands, twon siren, and guns; One World Percussion, 1981, in which 50 percussionists performed at the World Trade Center Foundation Plaza; Ten Grand, 1983, with ten grand painos and laser lights at the Lincoln Cneter Fountain Plaza; The Grand Harp Event, 1984, fearting 30 harps at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine; Solar Diptych, 1985, for 30 trumpets; Summer Solstice Event ,1985, commissioned by the New Wilderness Foundation with 30 trumpets; Marimbas, 1985, 26 marimbas performed at the Kennedy Center;  Liberty Overture, 1986, performed on the Brooklyn V, a 100-foot vessel in the New York Harbor for the Statue of Liberty Centennial; Quill ,1987, six harpsichords and surround-sound bird tapes at Symphony Space;  Symphony Of The Universe, 1989, 100 timpani, metal percussion, horn soloist, jazz band, choir, organ, and tape at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine;  A Mass For Mass Trombones (A requiem in memory of her father), 1993, 77 trombones at the Cathedra of St. John the Divine.;  Antarctica Suite, 1999,  45-minute piano solo about the composer’s trip to the great white continent;  Night of the Shooting Stars 2001, one poem for 16 percussionists commemorating the Leonid Meteor Shower;  Mandalas – Mandala in Funk for Percussion Quartet, Mandala for toy piano, Mandala for solo clarinet  Series of 3 musical mandalas inspired by a trip to Tibet;  Endangered Species Song Cycle Parts 1 & 2, 2000;  Orbit for 16 percussionists; and Kun, 2012, 64 toy pianos at South Street Seaport, New York City.

Photo Description and Copyright Information

Photo 1

Wendy Mae Chambers.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 2.

Painting by Wendy Mae Chambers.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 3.

Wendy Mae Chambers playing the toy piano.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 4.

Barnard College on July 24, 2009.  Attributed to Billy Hathorn.  Copyright Billy Hathorn at en Wikipedia.  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Photo 5.

The Charles Wang Center near the main entrance of Stony Brook University.  Attributed to Edwin Casado Baez.  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unported and GNU Free Documentaiton License 1.2.

Photo 6.

Music For Choreographed Rowboats.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 7. and 8.

Wendy Mae Chambers at her Car Horn Organ.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambrs.

Photo 11.

Lyle Saxton.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 12.

Jacket cover of The Friends of Joe Gilmore by Lyle Saxon.

Photo 13.

Jacket cover of The Lafitte Pirate by Lyle Saxon.

Photo 14.

Jacket cover of Old Louisiana by Lyle Saxon.

Photo 15.

Jacket cover of Father Mississippi The Story of The Great Flood of 1927 by Lyle Saxon.

Photo 16.

Jacket cover of Fabulous New Orleans by Lyle Saxon.

Photo 17.

Jacket cover of Children of Strangers by Lyle Saxon.

Photo 18.

Robert Tallant.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 19.

Jacket cover of Voodoo In New Orleans by Robert Tallant. 

Photo 20.

Jacket cover of The Voodoo Queen by Robert Tallant.

Photo 21.

Jacket cover of Mardi Gras As It Was by Robert Tallant.

Photo 22.

Jacket cover of Evangeline and the Acadians by Robert Tallant.

Photo 23.

Jacket cover of Mrs. Candy and Saturday Night by Robert Tallant.

Photo 24.

Jacket cover of Ready To Hang Seven Famous New Orleans Murders by Robert Tallant.

Photo 25.

Jacket cover of The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans by Robert Tallant.

Photo 26.

Wendy Mae Chambers at Marie Laveau’s tomb.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 27.

Marie Laveau.  1920 Painting by Frank Schneider based on a lost 1835 painting of Marie Laveau by George Catlin.  Public Domain.

Photo 28.

Drawing of Marie Laveau.  Pubic Domain.

Photo 29.

Painting of Marie Laveau.   Public Domian.

Photo 30.

Marie Laveau.  Public Domain.

Photo 31.

Black and white painting of Marie Laveau.  Public Domain.

Photo 32.

Congo Square.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 33.

Congo dancers.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 34.

Woman with umbrella.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 35.

Sketch.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 36.

Sallie Ann Glassman.  Attributed to Charlotte.  Attribution Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.

Photo 37.

http://www.amazon.com/Orleans-Voodoo-Tarot-Book-Card/dp/B00EX95TWS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1383337887&sr=8-4&keywords=sallie+ann+glassman

Photo 38.

John Cage.  Fair Use Under the United States Copyright law.

Photo 39.

Album jacket cover of 12 Squared.

Photo 40. and 41.

Wendy Mae Chambers, her Car Horn Organ, and Jay Leno on The Tonight Show.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 42.

Real Music.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 43.

One World Percussion Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 44.

Album cover of Ten Grand.

Photo 45.

The Grand Harp Event.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 46.

Album cover of Symphony of the Universe.

Photo 47.

Album cover of A Mass for Mass Trombones.

Photo 48.

Antarctica Suite.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 49.

Night of the Shooting Stars.  Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

Photo 50.

Wendy Mae Chambers participating in Kun. Copyright by Wendy Mae Chambers.

The Poet's Baptism of Memory and Experience

Christal Cooper – 2,326 Words

caccoop@gmail.com

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Facebook @ Christal Ann Rice Cooper

The Poet’s Baptism of Memory and Experience

but we were not born to survive

only to live

The last two lines of “The River of Bees”

by W.S. Merwin

“ I guess you could say I was baptized into poetry.”

Christina Lovin

         This past month Christina Lovin, at least 50 years young, was appointed Senior Poet Laureate of Kentucky for her poem “Two.” Being Senior Poet Laureate of Kentucky entails being a representation poet for those at least 50 years old and older. Her poetry, aimed at this age bracket, is beneficial for all generations, even today’s generation, to realize, appreciate, and remember in order to have a productive life.

       Memory and experience have always played a roll in Lovin’s poetry, and life. Throughout her life, she has been creating memories and depending on memories to live a life of a poet. Many of her memories are those memories of herself as a child.

       Lovin, described her childhood as charmed and full of joy. Lovin is the youngest of six living children reared by a father who was the game warden for Knox County, Illinois, and a-stay-at-home-mom. Animals, nature, and people who loved her, nurtured her during those early years.

       Lovin’s strongest memories are her memories of the women in her life. Her first vital memory is of her grandmother Mary, who died at the age of 90, right after Lovin celebrated her fourth birthday.

       “I distinctly remember visiting her in the country home (Knox County, Illinois). I can still see the tall windows behind her bed and the light streaming in. She gave me wintergreen lozenges that were thick, pink discs (wintergreen is still my favorite flavor). When Grandmother passed away, I also remember her funeral. In particular, I can visualize the maroon curtains with a stylized leaf pattern that served as a divider between the general guests and those who were related. The poem, “At Grandmother’s Funeral,” which appears on my website, pretty accurately describes that day.”

       Lovin remembers her mother singing hymns; the same hymns that she heard while attending church. One of the hymns her mother and the church would sing was “In The Garden,” the same hymn that was sung at her grandmother’s funeral.

       The women from her elementary school read poems to the little girl: “I’m Hiding, I’m Hiding,” “Eletelephony,” and numerous Emily Dickinson’s poems including “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass.”      

Her environment played a huge role in her development as a poet – being from Illinois she was very familiar with poet and Spoon River Anthology writer Edgar Lee Masters. When her family would visit her uncle’s and aunt’s farm they had to travel over Spoon River.

       “Spoon River ran through the middle of their six hundred acre farm. I spent many hours wading, swimming, and catching minnows and crawdads there. I guess you could say I was baptized into poetry.”

       Her journey through poetry included Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” which she memorized when she was just a little girl.  

       When she was nine years old she was given a box of small books, one of which held the sonnets of William Shakespeare, which she also memorized. It was around the same age that she started writing her own poetry, and, two years later, she had her first poem published in the Young America Sings anthologies. 

       A few years later, the young teenager purchased Best Loved Poems of the American People that was soon dog marked, especially the pages that bore the poems of “Man With a Hoe” by Edwin Markham, as well as female poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. She was soon reading the contemporary poets W.H Auden, Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot.

       Her identity as a poet was not cemented until adulthood, when, in the in the spring of 2000 she attended Harvard University’s summer writing program, taught by Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist Poet Bruce Smith. 

       “I began to understand what real poetry looked and sounded like, while I began to see that my life needed to change direction. At the end of the summer, one of my poems, “North Side of the House,” appeared in the Harvard Summer Review, and I was on my way to serious writing.”

       She continued other summer writing courses at Harvard in the summer of 2001 where Bruce Smith and fiction writer Jody Lisberger, her instructors, encouraged her to enroll in a Master of Fine Arts program, which she pursued at New England College in January of 2002, with Li-Young Lee as her faculty mentor. It wasn’t until 2004, just before graduation, that she finally felt she could call herself poet.

       “The Senior class had a reading, with each of us reading for about twenty minutes. As I sat down after my reading, a very famous poet, Michael Waters, leaned forward from his seat behind me and whispered, “Line for line, not a word was wasted.” Then after the reading, one of the other students came up to me, shook my hand, and said one word: “Poet.” That was the moment I really felt that I had something to share through poetry. I don’t consider my career to be poetry, but I do consider myself a poet. Like any art, some levels of skill can be taught to just about anyone, but unless that spark is there, he or she will not be an artist or a poet.”

       She continued to grow as a poet as writer-in-residence for numerous art colonies: Carl Sandburg’s home Connemara, located just outside Flat Rock, North Carolina; Andrew’s Experimental Forest, located on the western face of the Cascade Mountains near Blue River, Oregon; Devil’s Tower National Monument, located in the Black Hills of southwestern Wyoming; the Footpath’s House to Creativity, located on the Island of Flores in the Azores archipelago; Vermont Studio Center, located in Johnson, Vermont, near the Canadian border; Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, located near Sweet Briar College, outside Lynchburg, Virginia; Prairie Center for the Arts, located in Peoria, Illinois; and the Hopscotch House, a 10-acre farmstead located 13 miles east of downtown Louisville, Kentucky.

“What is most important to me about these experiences (including teaching creative writing) is the connection with other writers. I remember reading once that writers and poets are a “tribe.” I felt so relieved to know and understand that I had a tribe—people who, like me, live and work differently than people who are not artists. I also have to add that getting to know many visual artists has been an incredible experience. Although we approach our art(s) differently, we respect and honor the others’ sensibilities. I’ve found that visual artists are more upbeat and industrious, while writers/poets tend to be more morose and solitary. It’s always good to have a mix of these people when they are thrown together for a month or longer.”

       Lovin felt a connection with Sandburg on numerous levels: both are poets; both shared a Swedish heritage; and both come from Galesburg, Illinois.

“It was a great experience. Being in the main house, which has been left just as it was when the Sandburg’s lived there, was incredible.”

During her stay at Andrew’s Experimental Forest, Lovin visited six “reflection spots” throughout the forest; and then wrote about her thoughts, one of which was a poem about her experiences there titled “Two,” the same poem that won her the title of Senior Poet Laureate, Kentucky. 

Lovin spent a week as writer-in-residence at Devil’s Tower National Monument. She drove to the huge monolith during the nighttime, not able to see the monolith but able to fell its presence. 

 “The next morning, it was right where I knew it had to be. I only wrote one poem while I was there (“Little Fires”). However, after watching the tower at different times of day and night, it reminded me so much of Monet’s paintings of haystacks and Rouen Cathedral that I wrote a fictional sestina, “Monet’s Diary,” which reflects on how he might have viewed the monument.”

Lovin spent a month at the Footpaths House to Creativity, with no television or easily accessed Internet, which disciplined her to spend her entire stay writing, reading, and exploring the area.

 “I read a dozen books, including many novels, and the nonfiction crime novel, In Cold Blood, which has made me a huge Truman Capote fan. I spent a lot of time in the sunroom of Casa em Pedra (house of stone), looking out at the Atlantic Ocean below me. It was a magical time.”

She spent four weeks at the Vermont Studio Center, where she experienced artists of all genres; some who have become dear friends.  

“I’ve had the opportunity to study briefly with poets such as Anne Waldman, Marie Howe, and others. Always a productive time spent writing alone in a lovely writing studio, as well as socializing with others at dinners, social events, readings, and open studios.”

Her most recent residency was at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, this past March.

“ I’ve had residencies at VCCA on three occasions. I’ve been there in the summer, winter, and now the spring. The groups at VCCA are much smaller than VSC, with there being only around twenty fellows in residency at any given time. Once when I was there, there were a number of singer/songwriters in residence, and I had the good fortune to spend time with and get to know country music star, Kathy Mattea and her husband, Jon.”

The Prairie Center for the Arts residency is Lovin’s favorite because it is in the area of Illinois where she grew up and spent most of her adulthood. Thus far she’s had four residencies there and will return for another residency this December.

The Hopscotch House, a farmhouse, is owned and run by the Kentucky Foundation for Women. 

“Except for the lights of town, one would think he or she was far out in the boonies. It’s a lovely farmhouse with beautiful rooms and a wonderful kitchen to create communal meals. One of my favorite memories is being there with several women writers from my area of Kentucky, one of whom passed away two years ago.”

       When not writer-in-residence at numerous locations, Lovin is a full-time lecturer at Eastern Kentucky University; her one consistent course she has taught since 2010 is the Introduction to Creative Writing. She considers her position as a lecturer not only to teach but also to help students, especially those who want to be writers, to incorporate creative writing in their professional and personal lives.

       “I’ve had some students who began submitting and publishing pieces even before the semester was over. It’s exciting to find students who are obviously going to do well in the creative writing field, then encourage and mentor them as they move forward. Who could ask for more from a job?”

       Unlike most poets, Lovin does not have a specific routine, does not write every single day, and is not prolific.

       “I’m always amazed that some poets write a poem each day – I could never do that. I tend more to write in “clumps” of time and energy, then maybe not find the inspiration to write again for days or weeks. Inspiration comes when something inside a writer (spirit, sensibility, whatever one would like to call it) interacts with something outside (an image, an event, a connection).”

When the muse comes to her it usually begins with an image, word or phrase, which she immediately writes on a piece of paper. Later, when another image or thought comes to her, she’ll write it down, and revise the first notes and work on it until a poem is formed. Sometimes this process can take years between the first set of notes to the final draft of the poem.

       Other times the muse will hit at the most inopportune times – while driving. She was driving through the Smokey Mountains, inspired by a motorcyclist on the road ahead, when the muse hit. She dialed her own cell phone number and left herself a message with the draft of the poem – the result is the poem “The Zen of Mountain Driving.”

“I’ve done this many times. There is something about driving that seems to free up my mind for poetry.”

       The one thing she does do daily is read, which she believes is necessary in order to write effectively. In the process of reading, she’s discovered poems that have made her life more productive, or changed her life in a positive way. Some of the poems that have changed her as a person for the better are W.S. Merwin’s “The River of Bees”; “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott; “This Room and Everything In It” by Li-Young Lee; “Behaving Like A Jew” by Gerald Stern; “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa; “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” by Wendell Berry; “Our Love Is Like Byzantium” by Henrik Nordbrandt; “Places Propituous for Love” by Angel Gonzales; “Things I Didn’t Know I Loved” by Nazim Hikmet; and “Dulce et Decorum East” by Brit Wilfred Owen; and Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

“There is no one reason these particular poems moved or changed me, but they did. There was an emotional connection between myself and the poet, which is where I believe art becomes art (not when the poet writes the work.”

 Lovin is thrilled to be Senior Poet Laureate for Kentucky and already has a poetic connection with those she is to represent and her entire community. Lovin believes part of being a poet is to be able to connect with the reader.

 “I guess for me, poetry must elicit a response in the reader or listening, regardless of the form, language, and skill of the writer.”

Her poem “Two,” in addition to her other poems, are examples of this response from reader and connection between reader and poet.

For more information visit her website www.christinalovin.com to read her poetry, to email Lovin, click on the “Contact Me” link there.

 PHOTO DESCRIPTION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Photo 1

Christina Lovin.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 2a.

Big Brother Darrel and baby Christina.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 2b.

Darrel, Kent, and Christian.  1951.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 3a.

Bob and Clara Ericson on their wedding day.  August of 1925.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 3b.

Bob and Clara Erickson in 1925.

Photo 3c.

Christina Lovin’s father Bob Ericson.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 3d.

Christina Lovin’s mother Clara Ericson at age 33.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 3e.

Ericson Family.  Christina Lovin far right. 1965.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 4.

Christina Lovin, around age 4. Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 5.

Grandma Mary.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 6a.

Christina Lovin, age 6, with her mother.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 6b.

Clara, sitting down, with Christina standing next to her, far right.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 7a.

Emily Dickinson at Mount Holyoke in 1847.  Public Domain.

Photo 7b.

Christina Lovin, far left.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 8.

Spoon River Anthology jacket cover.

Photo 9.

Edgar Lee Masters Postage Stamp.  Public Domain.

Photo 10.a.

Spoon River in Fulton County, Illinois.  Attributed to United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  Public Domain.

Photo 10b

Christina Loving with her horse.  1964.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 11.

Edgar Allan Poe in November 9, 1848.  Attributed to Edwin Manchester.  Public Domain.

Photo 12.

Illustration for “The Raven” in 1858.  Attributed to John Tenniel.  Public Domain.

Photo 13.

William Shakespeare in 1810.  Attributed to John Taylor.  Public Domain.

Photo 14.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets jacket cover in 1609.

Photo 15.

Edwin Markham in 1919.  Attributed to Jonn B Homer.  Public Domain.

Photo 16.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox in 1908.  Public Domain.

Photo 17.

W.H. Auden in 1939.  Public Domain.

Photo 18.

Robert Frost in 1941.  Photo donated from New York World Telegram & Sun Collection to Library Of Congress.  Public Domain. 

Photo 19,

T.S. Eliot in 1923.  Attributed to Lady Morrell.  Public Domain.

Photo 20.

Bruce Smith at the Lannan Center in Georgetown University October 2, 2012.  Attributed to SlowKing4.  GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.

Photo 22.

LI-Young Lee.  Copyright by Li-Young Lee.

Photo 24.

Connemara.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 25.

Andrew’s Experimental Forest, Lookout Creek.  Attributed to Tom Araci.  Public Domain.

Photo 26.

Devil’s Tower National Monument.  Attributed to Christina Lovin.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 27.

Casa em Pedra. My home for four weeks. The square room to the left is a wonderful sunroom with doors all around. I spent most of my time there. — in Lajes das Flores, Azores, Portugal.

Photo 28.

Vermont Studio Center’s Maverick Studio overlooking the Gihan River.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 29.

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  Lovin’s studio is the third window from the left.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 30.

Prairie Center For The Arts logo.  http://www.prairecenterofthearts.blogspot.com

Photo 31.

Hopscotch House.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 32.

Christina Lovin.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 33.

Carl Sandburg in 1955.  Attributed to Al Ravenna on behalf of donated to Library of Congress.

Photo 34.

The Farm Manager’s Cottage at Carl Sandburg’s home Connemara.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 35

Rock Formation at Andrew’s Experimental Forest.  Public Domain.

Photo 36.

Christina Lovin at the Devil’s Tower National Monument.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 37.

Claude Monet in 1899.  Public Domain.

Photo 38.

Claude Monet’s Haystacks.  Oil on Canvas.  Public Domain.

Photo 39.

Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral.  Public Domain.

Photo 40.

Footpath’s House to Creativity.  Christina Lovin overlooking Cedres.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 41.

Truman Capote.  Creative Commons Share Attribution Alike

Photo 42.

In Cold Blood jacket cover.

Photo 43.

View from Prospect Rock at Vermont Studio Center.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 44.

Anne Waldman in 2003.  Attributed to Gloria Graham.  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Photo 45.

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  Cows  grazing with Sweet Briar College in the background.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 46.

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 47.

Hopscotch House – Christina’s bedroom.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 48.

Christina Lovin.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 49.

Christina Lovin giving a poet reading.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.m

Photo 50.

Christina Lovin at the AWP 2012 Conference.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 51.

Christina Lovin.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 52.

Christina Lovin standing in front of her car in 1976.  Copyright by Christina Lovin.

Photo 53.

Derek Walcot in Amsterdam May 20, 2008.  Attributed to Bert Nienhuis.  GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 or later version.

Photo 54.

Li-Young Lee.  Copyright by Li-Young Lee.

Photo 55.

Gerald Stern at the Miami Book Fair International on November 19, 2011.  Attributed to Rodrigo Fernandez.  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Photo 56.

Yusef Komunyakaa at the National Bok Critics Circle Awards of 2011.  Attributed to David Shankbone.  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Photo 57.

Wendell Berry on July 27, 2007.  Attributed to David Marshall.  Creative Common Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.

Photo 58.

Nazim Hikmer.  Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law.

Photo 59.

Walt Whitman in 1887.  Attributed to George C Cox.  Restoration of photo attributed to Adam Cuerden.   Public Domain.

Photo 60.

Leaves of Grass jacket cover 1860 – 1861.

Photo 61.

A Stirring In The Dark jacket cover.  Old Seventy Creek Press (http://old-seventy-creek-press.com)

Photo 62.

Flesh jacket cover.  Finishing Line Press (www.finishinglinepress.com)

Photo 63.

What We Burned For Warmth jacket cover.  Finishing Line Press (www.finishinglinepress.com)

Photo 64.

Little Fires (New Women’s Voices, No. 55 jacket cover.  Finishing Line Press (www.finishinglinepress.com)

Photo 65.

Christina Lovin and Carl Sandburg’s goat.  Copyrigh