|
|
|
|
|
 |
  |
             
 |
 |
April is National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate and appreciate the art of poetry. Georgia's poets, from nineteenth-century scribes Thomas Holley Chivers and Sidney Lanier to Pulitzer Prize-winner Natasha Trethewey, have contributed to a long and vibrant tradition in the state. While many of these poets, both natives and transplants, explore themes and experiences specific to Georgia and the South, others, particularly in more recent decades, engage in a wider discourse and help to illuminate Georgia's place in a larger context. As literary historian Hugh Ruppersburg points out in his introduction to Georgia Voices: Poetry, "Poetry in contemporary Georgia continues to reflect the place and times of its origins." But he goes on to say, "At the same time, the boundaries of the world that Georgia poets write about stretch far beyond the borders of the state." Conrad Aiken and James Dickey, widely considered the foremost Georgia poets of the twentieth century, exemplify these dual roles of contemporary poetry. Aiken, born in Savannah in 1889, left the state as a child after the traumatic deaths of his parents, and spent much of his life in the Northeast and abroad. He returned to Savannah for the last decade of his life, however, and in 1973 was appointed the state's poet laureate. His work deals primarily with psychological themes and problems in the modern world. James Dickey, born and raised in Atlanta in 1923, spent most of his life in the South and set much of his work there. His poems, written primarily in the confessional vein, wrestle, like Aiken's, with issues of modernity. Georgia's twenty-first-century poets continue this rich literary heritage, writing with an acute awareness of the state's history and landscape, while also exploring themes that transcend geographical borders. Bettie Sellers, state poet laureate from 1997 to 2000 and a lifelong resident of Georgia, focuses much of her work on the landscape and culture of the Blue Ridge Mountains; she follows in the literary footsteps of Byron Herbert Reece, whose twentieth-century poems draw on imagery from his native Union County to explore nature, death, love, and religion. David Bottoms, who succeeded Sellers as state poet laureate in 2000 and claims James Dickey as a major influence, found literary fame in 1980 with a collection of poems entitled Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump; his poems delve into questions of religion and mortality, nature and violence. Others draw on influences from beyond Georgia. Coleman Barks, a native of Tennessee and longtime Georgia resident, is best known for his translations of Near Eastern poets, especially Jalal al-Din Rumi, and often brings the mysticism of these works to bear in his own poems. Natasha Trethewey, another longtime resident of Georgia, won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection Native Guard (2006), which examines gaps and intersections in the public history of her native Mississippi and in the private narrative of her biracial family. Judith Ortiz Cofer, a native of Puerto Rico who has spent much of her life in Georgia, writes poems that illuminate, often in both Spanish and English, her immigrant experience. We invite you to explore our articles on these and the many other poets who have advanced the art of poetry in Georgia and beyond. And don't miss the audio and video clips available for many of the poets, which appear in the right-hand column of the articles.
| |
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
Home | What's New | Index | Quick Facts | About NGE | Help | Contact A project of the Georgia Humanities Council, in partnership with the University of Georgia Press, the University System of Georgia/GALILEO, and the Office of the Governor.
|
