pokkoli

Mutabilis Press Announces New Texas Poetry Anthology
including work by former participants in workshops at Centro Pokkoli

The Weight of Addition, an anthology of Texas Poetry is our fourth and newest title. In this new collection, Randall Watson has thoughtfully brought together the work of 118 poets connected to Texas by heritage and/or residence, or by coming here for a time, often to teach, contributing remarkably to our evolving poetry community. With The Weight of Addition, an Anthology of Texas Poetry, it is our continuing mission to document the rich and diverse work that is being created here.

Randy writes in his introduction, "It is my intention, then that the title, The Weight of Addition, should suggest the depth and range of the work that appears here."

He goes on to conclude, " . . . --we have the poems themselves: each a sign and a revelation of our uncommon lives . . . each an artifact of the spirit, of the inner life with its mass and fluidity, . . . each an addition and a weight--humane and troubled and hopeful and necessary--a mirror in which we might discover not just those things that distinguish us, but those that identify us, that connect us, individually, in what might be called our mutuality, our belonging."

Watch this space for news about our friends, teachers, and participants

Vitorchiano Diary by David Lynn
originally printed in The Kenyon Review

Sunday, June 5

I’m sitting in my hotel room, the window wide open, a steep hill of pines and plane trees climbing across the way. The Tuscia, this area north of Rome, is much greener than I’d expected, its sharp hills and mountains rising from the broad plain below. Only a few hours ago I was buffeted by the weekend bustle of da Vinci Airport in Rome, worried—as I always worry—about the new Kenyon Review Writers Workshop about to begin. But this one is in Italy—a far cry from the well-known paths of Gambier.

Our writing programs have become an ever more important part of the identity and mission of The Kenyon Review. Our workshops for young writers and adults in Gambier have grown every year. We are developing new generations of readers and writers, and that’s a critical and creative way to keep the flame of literature alive. But adults are a challenging market: persuading them to spend money—and time!—on themselves can be a hard sell. The idea of launching this new program abroad is to offer both the chance for serious writing and instruction and for the pleasures of exploration and holiday as well.

A ninety-minute drive through the green-golden hills outside of Rome brought the twenty-plus participants and staff up into the vineyards, olive groves, and forests of the Cimini Mountains. The air is immediately lighter, cooler, lovely. This is an authentic Italy that one so rarely has access to—nary a tourist coach on the horizon.


Monday, June 6

Truth is, last night after dinner I sneaked out of the Hotel Piccola to glimpse Vitorchiano firsthand, the village where the workshops will take place. I did not, could not write about my impressions on returning, not merely because I was sleepy and the hour late, but because I doubted my ability to do so in anything other than a tone of hyperbole that readers would dismiss as preposterous. I considered, truly, abandoning this journal. But in this morning’s brilliant sunshine, I returned to the central village once more, this time with the ten participants of our fiction workshop, and now I feel better able to take a shot.

Last night, passing through the archway of a wall that encircles the small hill town, all I could make out were the ancient buildings themselves. At the edge of one terrace, staring out into the vast blackness of the chasm that falls away to three sides, I could see only the stars high overhead. From the distance came the song of the nightingale and the clockless call of the cuckoo.

Everything here—walls, pavement, churches and houses, alleys and arches—is wrought from a dark gray stone mined locally and aptly named pepperino, or pepperstone. The village perches on the crown of a jutting outcrop of that same rock, as if it were part of the same original extrusion from the earth, or perhaps a later, stony blossom. Built largely in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Vitorchiano seems largely untouched by the modern world, except that tiny cars do indeed sidle through the narrow lanes and alleys, and the denizens who live here are very much a part of our world. No touch of Epcott in these precincts.

Today we arrived to begin our program at the seminar center recently opened by the American poet Linda Lappin. The cottage is in the center of the village. Its main room—comfortable space for twelve or fourteen writers—looks out across that great chasm falling protectively away below.


Tuesday, June 7

Our participants—seventeen writers and four partners or guests— make up an interesting group of most every size, shape, and persuasion. They come from across the U.S. And though several have been involved with earlier KR workshops in Gambier, most have never had a Kenyon or KR connection. I’m pretty sure that after this experience, most will continue as part of the national community that has become such a signature of our programs.

One thing these writers all share is talent and commitment. Amazingly, there’s been not a single whinge so far—remarkable for any enterprise such as this. It helps to have Nancy Zafris teaching fiction and David Baker poetry. They are marvelous, challenging, inspiring instructors, and they share not a little diplomatic talent as well.

The fiction workshop meets each morning for two hours, the poetry for two hours; one group took the early shift in the seminar room on Monday. Today they have flip-flopped. I can tell that all is going well because everyone seems so eager to keep writing in the afternoons, despite the fine lunches and the lure of a siesta at the Hotel Piccola.

This afternoon we took the first of our special outings, this to a local “park of monsters.” The Tuscia, it turns out, is full of these unexpected glories. The park was created on a mountaintop near the hill town of Bomarzo by Prince Orsini in the sixteenth century. In dells and glens, across rolling hills and sharp rocky spines, enormous stone gorgons and giants preen and astonish. Supposedly, the prince was so in love with his young wife that he built this park as a place to play and sport, and one can imagine the parties here. Many of the monsters have been carved in place from outcrops of the dark gray pepperino, and the artistry is astounding. Waterfalls and streams flow throughout, and it’s impossible to tell which of these waterways were created, which occur quite naturally. David Baker suggested—and I think it’s a great idea—that next year we arrange a picnic here and have workshops in the park in the afternoon.


Wednesday, June 8

One of the women on the program came up to me after dinner. “I thought, when I first saw the schedule, that taking a day off would be a waste of time,” she said. “But now I realize it was brilliant—we’ve been working so hard. I needed the break!”

I was glad to hear that, of course. A handful of our writers decided to stay in Vitorchiano and keep at their work. More power to them! Most of the others, however, used the off-day to travel near and far for fun and, I suspect, for fresh inspiration. Orvieto is only forty-five minutes away, with one of the great cathedrals in Italy, its famous wines, its glorious views from high above the countryside. More locally, Viterbo and Orte are well worth a visit. One woman took a train to Florence for the day, and reported tonight that she had a marvelous time just walking nonstop through that magical city. Still others, myself included, slipped away for a bright, breezy day of walking, shopping, eating in Rome.


Friday, June 9

A good day of work it has been. I’m delighted that each of the workshop groups has developed its own personality and independence. They’ve taken to meeting when and where they like, sometimes in an open air café just outside the walls of the old town, sometimes in the hidden grotto that lies all but secret within another café within the narrow, cobbled streets. You have to enter the outer chamber, find your way down a dark hole, before the inner room opens out with spaciousness and warmth. A wonderful place to collaborate—if only you can find it.

David and Nancy have their cohorts writing around the clock, all sharing a bond of excitement and exhilaration and not a little conspiracy. Tomorrow night before our parting gala dinner there will be an open reading and, as always, I know it will be great fun.

Already Ellen Sheffield, our program director who has made this all happen, and I are planning for next year. I’d anticipated making wholesale changes after the initial event, but there’s surely no need. I can hardly wait.

~David H. Lynn

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