{"id":3236,"date":"2016-05-12T14:43:38","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T22:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getlitfestival.org\/?p=3236"},"modified":"2016-05-12T14:43:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T22:43:38","slug":"ewu-visiting-writer-series-elizabeth-spires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/ewu-visiting-writer-series-elizabeth-spires\/","title":{"rendered":"EWU Visiting Writer Series: Elizabeth Spires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author Elizabeth Spires comes to Auntie\u2019s Tomorrow Evening
\n<\/strong>By Get Lit! staff writer Lisa Laughlin
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Spires is a woman of many talents. She is the author of six collections of poetry (Globe, Swan\u2019s Island, Annonciade, Worldling, Now the Green Blade Rises, <\/em>and The Wave-Maker<\/em>) and has also written six books for children. Her poems and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The New York Times, <\/em>and Paris Review.<\/em> She currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland and is a professor of English at Goucher College, where she co-directs the Kratz Center for Creative Writing.<\/p>\n

So, yeah. She\u2019s pretty badass. And she\u2019s coming to talk with us.<\/p>\n

Her poem \u201cSnail\u201d included in her newest collection, The Wave-Maker,<\/em> was first published in Poetry<\/em>, and you can read it online here<\/a>. The Wave-Maker<\/em> also includes a poem entitled \u201cSnail Revisited.\u201d I, for one, am curious about the epiphany Spires had upon a second snail encounter, as her first snail revelations were pretty substantial.<\/p>\n

Spires considers her process for inspiration a series of \u201chappy accidents,\u201d as she credits Elizabeth Bishop for coining while describing the process of writing a poem. Spires agrees that the image or event that triggers a poem is always unexpected; it cannot be planned or contrived, willed or wished for. The inspirational seed for her poem \u201cSnail,\u201d for example, came from an afternoon she spent visiting her daughter\u2019s elementary school for Parent\u2019s Day. She ended up observing snails in a science lab among a bunch of fifth grade girls, and was possibly more captivated than they were.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never really observed a snail before, and I was struck (really and truly struck, as if by a tiny lightning bolt) by the grace, mystery, and the utter strangeness of my daughter\u2019s snail as it traversed the long green lab table in minute increments,\u201d Spires wrote in a column for Poems Out Loud<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Spires is pretty talented at translating \u201chappy accidents\u201d into universal\"Cover<\/a> literature. Perhaps this is because once she is hit by the subject matter for a poem, she then engages in a \u201cseries of small, crucial decisions.\u201d We see this attention to detail at work in the unique structure of \u201cSnail:\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if a poem is written in free verse, the choice of even one wrong word can mar the overall rhythm and sound pattern. \u2018Snail\u2019 seemed to insist on its own distinct form and shape and ended up looking very different from my other poems (which use conventional lineation, punctuation, and capitalization). [. . .] one proceeds by intuition,\u201d Spires wrote.<\/p>\n

Spires applies white space in \u201cSnail\u201d in place of punctuation to try to mimic a snail\u2019s \u201cslow, inexorable progress, or stillness, the sense [of] it being engaged in being rather than doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With such consideration and energy devoted to a single poem, Spires\u2019 latest collection seems unlikely to disappoint.<\/p>\n

Come listen to Spires read her work tomorrow, Friday, May 13 at 7:30 p.m. at Auntie\u2019s Bookstore. Ask her if she\u2019s had any recent enlightenment on snails, or to share further on her writing process as a poet or children\u2019s book author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author Elizabeth Spires comes to Auntie\u2019s Tomorrow Evening By Get Lit! staff writer Lisa Laughlin Elizabeth Spires is a woman of many talents. She is the author of six collections of poetry (Globe, Swan\u2019s Island, Annonciade, Worldling, Now the Green Blade Rises, and The Wave-Maker) and has also written six books for children. Her poems … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":924,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":[],"_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}