NMSPS Annual Meeting & State Convention
Saturday, April 16, 2022, 8:30am to 5:30pm
Convention Wrap-Up!
The 2022 Convention has come and gone – and what a spectacular celebration it was! An expansive field of nearly 30 poets, representing a vast array of poetic styles and experiences, shared their poetry with all of our attendees, making this year’s event a smashing success! We had poets laureate from Santa Fe and South Euclid, Ohio reading alongside spoken word artists from the US and abroad. We had two incredibly powerful workshops facilitated by poets whose presentations started very necessary conversations. The underlying current of self-care and self-expression as we navigate transition, loss and a more hopeful future was palpable and so uplifting. Our featured readers brought such inspiration and such strength to the “stage” as well, and of course, Ana Castillo’s keynote address on the meaning of poetry when nothing stays the same emboldened our hearts and perhaps helped some of us find new purpose.
All in all, this year’s convention was a thing of beauty, and all of the feedback we have received so far seems to indicate that people left the event feeling uplifted and renewed – and what better result could a gathering of creative minds and empathetic hearts could you ask for?
If you were in attendance, thank you for sharing your light with us and for holding the poets up – and if you were not, fear not – we are looking into several options for sharing some of the highlights with you through our online platforms. So keep an eye on the NMSPS website for that.
And remember – the past is behind you, with all its myriad experiences. The future however, lies ever forward with new experiences awaiting and new memories to be made, so let us move into that future with confidence and purpose!
🎤 Zachary Kluckman, Director of Publications, Contests, & Fundraising
NMSPS Annual General Meeting
8:30am to 9:30am via Zoom
Open to NMSPS Members in Good Standing only.
No admission fee…more
NMSPS State Convention Program
Theme: Transition
10:00am to 5:30pm via Zoom
Emcee – Zachary Kluckman
Register & Pay by midnight April 13!
Anyone can attend.
Discounted admission fee for NMSPS members.
Click on the little blue bird in the upper right corner of any page to register or click here.
Convention Program
10:00
Introductions/ Opening Statements
10:10
Featured Reader – Darryl Lorenzo Wellington
10:25
Featured Reader – Scott Wiggerman
10:40
Choice of
Morning Workshop – Melissa May-Dunn – Writing the Wound
-or-
Open Mic
11:40
Poems of Grief, Poems of Hope: Poems to Acknowledge the Past, and Celebrate What May Be
12:00 pm
Announcements and a song from One Single Rose
12:05 – 1:00 pm
Lunch Break
1:05
Choice of
Afternoon Workshop: Alison Stone – Mythic Re-Visioning: Ekphrasis as a Path to Self-Expression
-or-
Open Mic
2:00
Featured Reader – Dana Levin
2:15
Featured Reader – Lauren Camp
2:30
Mental Health Poetry: Elevating the Voices of an Invisible Struggle and Celebrating Survival
3:00
Spoken Word: A Dynamic Showcase of Spoken Word Talents
3:30
Spotlight Poet 1 – Ayokunle Falomo
3:50
Spotlight Poet 2 – Traci Brimhall
4:05
Keynote Address: Ana Castillo
5:05
Wrap Up and Closing Statements
Keynote Speaker – Ana Castillo
The one, the only Ana Castillo is slated to be this year’s Keynote Speaker at our 2022 Annual State Convention in April! Ana is a celebrated and distinguished poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Read her full bio (and check out her books and audio/video posts!) at her website.
Ana Castillo – My Book of the Dead
For more than thirty years, Ana Castillo has been mesmerizing and inspiring readers from all over the world with her passionate and fiery poetry and prose. Now the original Xicanista is back to her first literary love, poetry, and to interrogating the social and political upheaval the world has seen over the last decade. Angry and sad, playful and wise, Castillo delves into the bitter side of our world—the environmental crisis, COVID-19, ongoing systemic racism and violence, children in detention camps, and the Trump presidency—and emerges stronger from exploring these troubling affairs of today. Drawings by Castillo created over the past five years are featured throughout the collection and further showcase her connection to her work as both a writer and a visual artist. My Book of the Dead is a remarkable collection that features a poet at the height of her craft.
Take a closer look at this stunning new book!
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Featured Reader – Dana Levin
Dana Levin’s fifth book is Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon, Spring 2022), a Lannan Literary Selection. Recent books include Banana Palace (2016) and Sky Burial (2011), which The New Yorker called “utterly her own and utterly riveting.” She is a grateful recipient of honors, including those from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN, and the Library of Congress, as well as from the Rona Jaffe, Whiting, and Guggenheim Foundations. Levin teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Maryville University in St. Louis.
SPECIAL OFFER FROM DANA LEVIN FOR CONVENTION ATTENDEES!
Left Bank Books is thrilled to offer signed and personalized copies of Dana Levin’s highly anticipated book of poetry Now Do You Know Where You Are.
Dana Levin’s new book Now Do You Know Where You Are comes out on April 19th. Get your order in now for a signed or signed and personalized copy. Once the books have arrived to our store, Dana Levin will come in to sign and personalize copies for pick up or mail out.
This is the ONLY place where you can pre-order signed copies of this new book, which is sure to fly off the shelves, and it is a special treat for our attendees, so be sure to check out the site below and you can order one now!
https://www.left-bank.com/product/signed-now-do-you-know-where-you-are-dana-levin
Featured Reader – Scott Wiggerman
Scott Wiggerman, a 2021 inductee to the Texas Institute of Letters, is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Leaf and Beak: Sonnets, and an editor of several volumes, including 22 Poems and a Prayer for El Paso, winner of a NM/AZ Book Award in 2020, and Wingbeats I & II: Exercises & Practice in Poetry. He has served the past five years as Chair of the Albuquerque Chapter of the New Mexico State Poetry Society and has taught numerous poetry classes, in particular on form.
Featured Reader – Lauren Camp
Lauren Camp is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press, 2020), which received the American Fiction Award in Poetry and was named a Distinguished Favorite for the Independent Press Award. Her book One Hundred Hungers (Tupelo Press, 2016) won the Dorset Prize. It was also a finalist for the Arab American Book Award, the Housatonic Book Award and the Sheila Margaret Motton Prize. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, The Los Angeles Review, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, Witness and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. Her work has been translated into Turkish, Mandarin, Serbian, Arabic and Spanish. Lauren lives in New Mexico, where she teaches through the state’s Poetry Out Loud program and her own community workshops. She also teaches for Hugo House, The Loft Literary Center and Hudson Valley Writers Center.
Mental Health Poetry: Elevating the Voices of an Invisible Struggle and Celebrating Survival
Mental Health Poetry: a curated reading from poets around the nation, featuring Andreas Fleps and more!
Spoken Word: A Dynamic Showcase of Spoken Word Talents
Readers include Rene Mullen, Kristin Patton, Marcial Delgado, Scarlett Cortez, B. Royalty, Marissa Prada, and One Single Rose.
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Featured Reader – Santa Fe Poet Laureate, Darryl Wellington
Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is the 2021-2023 poet laureate of Santa Fe, NM. His poetry chapbook Life’s Prisoners received the 2017 Turtle Island Quarterly Chapbook Award. His first full-length poetry collection is Psalms at the Present Time (Flowstone Press, 2021).
Wellington has over twenty years of experience as a freelance journalist and essayist, He writes a syndicated editorial column for The Progressive Media Project. He has been featured on the Tavis Smiley Radio Show. Since 2016, he has been a Writing/Communications Fellow with Center for Community Change, a Washington DC-based organization that supports low-income people of color.
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Morning Workshop – Writing the Wound, led by Melissa May-Dunn
Melissa May-Dunn, Master of Human Relations in Clinical Mental Health, is the author of Sparklefat: Poems That Intend to Be Seen and Up Is So Near.
Writing the Wound will take a trauma-informed approach to processing distressing or negatively-impactful experiences through a poetic lens. This workshop will not only break down the components of writing through trauma, but will offer methods and coping skills for personal mental health support throughout the process to minimize re-traumatization.
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Poems of Grief, Poems of Hope: Poems to Acknowledge the Past, and Celebrate What May Be
A curated reading from poets around the nation speaking to loss and moving forward includes Chibbi Orduna, Jessica Ann Sanchez, Eric Sirota, Miriam Sagan, Beata Tsosie Pena, Alexandria Gurley. Stay tuned, more poets to come!
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Afternoon Workshop
Mythic Re-Visioning: Ekphrasis as a Path to Self-Expression, led by Alison Stone
Alison Stone has published seven full-length collections and three chapbooks, most recently Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020). She was awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin award. A licensed psychotherapist, she is also a visual artist and the creator of The Stone Tarot.
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Spotlight Poet 1: Ayokunle Falomo
Ayokunle Falomo is Nigerian, American, and the author of AFRICANAMERICAN’T (FlowerSong Press, 2022), two self-published collections and African, American(New Delta Review, 2019; selected by Selah Saterstrom as the winner of New Delta Review’s 8th annual chapbook contest). A recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, MacDowell, and the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program, where he obtained his MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry, his work has been anthologized and widely published in print and online: The New York Times, Houston Public Media, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Texas Review, New England Review, Write About Now among others.
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Spotlight Poet 2: Traci Brimhall
Traci Brimhall is the author of four collections of poetry: Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod (Copper Canyon Press, 2020); Saudade (Copper Canyon Press, 2017); Our Lady of the Ruins (W.W. Norton, 2012), selected by Carolyn Forché for the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize; and Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), selected by Michelle Boisseau for the 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Award. Her children’s book, Sophia & The Boy Who Fell, was published by SeedStar Books in March 2017.
Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, New England Review, Ploughshares, Orion The Believer, The Nation, The New Republic and New York Times Magazine. Her essays have appeared in Georgia Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, Copper Nickel, and Brevity. Some of her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Best of the Net, PBS Newshour, and Best American Poetry 2013 & 2014. She has also received the Just Desserts Short Fiction Prize from Passages North (selected by Roxane Gay), the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction from Bellingham Review (selected by Sue William Silverman), the Jane Geske Award for poetry from Prairie Schooner (selected by Kwame Dawes), the Cecil Hemley Award from the Poetry Society of America (selected by Sally Wen Mao), and a Pushcart Prize.
She received a 2013 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry, the 2012 Summer Poet in Residence at the University of Mississippi, and the 2008-2009 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Other awards for her work include scholarships and fellowships to the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Writer’s Center of Bethesda, Vermont Studio Center, the Disquiet International Literary Program, and the Arctic Circle Residency.
She holds degrees from Florida State University (BA), Sarah Lawrence College (MFA), and Western Michigan University (PhD). She works as an Associate Professor and Director of Creative Writing at Kansas State University.
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NMSPS Annual General Meeting
April 16, 2022, 8:30-9:30 a.m.
(on Zoom)
All NMSPS Members are encouraged to attend the Annual General Meeting. There is no registration required and no fee to attend, but you must be a Member in Good Standing, with current dues either paid (for Adult Poets) or waived (for Young Adult Poets, Youth Poets, Complimentary, and Lifetime Members).
If you are a Member in Good Standing as of April 13, 2022, NMSPS will send a Zoom link for the annual meeting to the email address associated with your NMSPS account. Look for an email with the link on April 14 or 15. (Remember to check your Spam/Junk folder.)
If you aren’t sure whether you are a Member in Good Standing or whether your email address is up to date, please log into your account by clicking on “Log In” in the top menu on any nmpoetry.com page. If you don’t know your log in info, you can click on “Lost Password” in the bottom right of the “Log In” page and reset your password. If you have any trouble, contact the NMSPS Webmaster or the Membership Chair. You can also reach us through the Contact Us form.
Please note that the General Meeting is free to members, but the Convention is $25 for members between March 17th and April 13th. Click on the little blue bird a the top right of any page to register for the Convention!
Click to view/download the Annual General Meeting agenda.
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Last updated on April 20, 2022