English

STEAKholders

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7 speakers from “Everyone Has a STEAK in It”
“Everyone Has a STEAK in It” speakers (l-r): Shadae Sutherland ’14, Lanna Lewis (ACSJL), DeAngelo Glaze ’14, Mariah Hennen ’15 (CES), Darwin Rodriguez ’13, Amelia Katanski ’92 (English, Farms to K), and Katherine Rapin ’15 (CES).

“Everyone Has a STEAK in It: Implications of How We Eat at K” was the theme of Winter Quarter 2013 Week One (Jan. 11) Community Reflection in Stetson Chapel. Sponsored by the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, several K community members spoke about the importance of food as part of the College’s food vendor selection process continuing this quarter.

Migrant Rights Action Civic Engagement Scholar Mariah Hennen ’15 addressed the crowd of more than 100 students and faculty members on the importance of the food vendor selection. “Decisions always have ramifications, and choosing a dining service provider for Kalamazoo College is no exception,” she said. Shadae Sutherland ’14 spoke about her experience of moving to Kalamazoo from Jamaica, where she was used to eating food her family grew and produced. “The food that I have had here tastes quite different from the ones I have had in Jamaica. The flavor is very diminished,” she said. She stressed that an ideal food provider for the cafeteria should offer more options for people with dietary restrictions.

Dining Vendor Selection Committee member DeAngelo Glaze ’14, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) Administrative Assistant Lanna Lewis, Associate Professor of English and Farms 2 K faculty advisor Amelia Katanski ’92, Student Commission Vice President Darwin Rodriguez ’13, and Farms to K Civic Engagement Scholar Katherine Rapin ’15 shared their unique perspectives on food justice. By telling stories about their own gastronomic histories from a political, racial, epicurean, genealogical, biological, and cultural standpoint, each speaker encouraged audience members to evaluate their own relationship with food systems in order to participate in the food provider selection process. “We have the institutional buying power to redefine how our food system works,” said Katanski. “We can serve as a leader—an institution that puts our values into action.”

 “Everyone Has a STEAK in It” speakers were (l-r) Shadae Sutherland ’14, Lanna Lewis (ACSJL), DeAngelo Glaze ’14, Mariah Hennen ’15 (CES), Darwin Rodriguez ’13, Amelia Katanski ’92 (English,  Farms to K), and Katherine Rapin ’15 (CES).
Community Reflection offers a unique forum for discussion, worship, performance, and community expression each Friday at 10:50 AM (refreshments at 10:30) in Stetson Chapel. The entire campus community and general public are invited. The Week Two (Jan. 18) Reflection, “A Dream Deferred, a Dream Made Reality? Marking the 50th Anniversary of the “I Have a Dream Speech.”will feature Harvey Hollins III ’87, director of the Office of Urban and Metropolitan Initiatives for the State of Michigan.

Story by Elaine Ezekiel ’13.

K Writer-in-Residence Publishes Multiple Works

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Writer In Residence Diane Seuss has been hard at work, and the result is a prolific fall and winter. Her poem “Either everything is sexual or nothing is, take this flock of poppies,” appears in the 2013 edition of the Pushcart Prize anthology, which is hot off the presses. And her poem “Oh four-legged girl, it’s either you or the ossuary” is in the fall/winter issue of Black Warrior Review. The poem won the Summer Literary Seminar’s Poetry Prize. “Hub,” a lyric essay, won Wag’s Revue’s winter contest (To access all of the essay’s pages, click on the arrow on the right margin). “I emptied my little wishing well of its emptiness” won Mid-American Review’s Fineline Competition and appears in its fall/winter issue. Two poems, “I’m moved by her, that big-nippled girl,” and “The ghosts down in North-of-the-South aren’t see-through” will appear in Ecotone’s “Abnormal” issue. The poem “Hindenburg” will appear in a forthcoming issue of Devil’s Lake. In other news, poet Adrian Blevins wrote a review of Di’s most recent collection of poems that appears in “On the Seawall: Ron Slate’s Website.” Just reading/hearing the titles of Di’s poems is a rewarding poetic experience!

K Graduate Wins Poetry Contest

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Genevieve Leet ’11 is the winner of the poetry category in the 3rd Annual Terrain.org Contests in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction. Her poem set was titled “[when I died they found a nest of snakes in my intestines, their backs]” and “Somewhere beyond the curve of the earth, there is a ceremonial bamboo boat.”

The poet Suzanne Frischkorn served as the contest judge and wrote about the poems’ “terrible beauty;” their complex layers of sound, language, and meaning; and the slow and sequential opening of the poems so deeply rewarding to the reader.

Leet wrote to her friends and mentors at K, “I am so proud and excited! Thank you to all of you who have supported my poetry journey with your kind words, by coming to readings, and by giving critiques.” The poems will be published in January at Terrain.org.

Kalamazoo College Professor Earns National Writing Award

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Visiting Professor of English Rachel Swearingen, Ph.D., has received a 2012 Rona Jaffe Award, the prestigious writing award given annually by the Rona Jaffe Foundation to six women “who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their career.” It’s the only national award dedicated to women writers. She will pick up her $30,000 award at a New York City awards ceremony on Sept. 20. Congrats, Professor!

K Professor Takes First Place in Literature Competition

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Kalamazoo College Writer in Residence Diane Seuss is the first-prize winner in Mid-American Review’s 2012 Fineline Competition for Prose Poems, Short Shorts, and Anything in Between! Judge Amelia Gray selected Seuss’s piece “I emptied my little wishing well of its emptiness” out of some 1,000 entries. The work will appear in the forthcoming fall issue of Mid-American Review.

English Professor’s Witch Piece Accepted–Story or Fable?

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Gail Griffin, English, writes, “I guess I’m a fiction writer now.” Her piece, “Four or Five Witches,” will be published in the October 1 issue of Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism. The October issue will be the second for the new journal and is “dedicated to developing an understanding of and appreciation for fabulist literature.” When she wrote the piece, Griffin was thinking more in terms of fable or myth and less so in terms of fiction per se. The four movements in the piece seem to belie the “or Five” in the title, but Griffin explains that those two words are “meant to be just flamingly ambiguous. The witch in the ’Red’ piece is mostly the Snow White witch but has a little of the Wicked Witch of the West about her. And in number 4, she’s both the Hansel-and-Gretel witch and the Blair Witch. I just thought I’d let the title reflect how the witch figures morph into each other.” Check out the entire story (or fable) come October!

 

Smokin’ Poets

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Thanks, in part, to Kim Grabowski ’12, the Spring issue of the on-line magazine, The Smoking Poet, features a strong K connection. Grabowski was an intern at the magazine and helped compile an issue that features the work of Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss ’78 as well as current students and alumni.

The alums include Kit Almy ’89, Lauren Moran ’11, Katie Prout ’09, and John Craig ’11. Current students with poems published in the issue are Nick Canu ’12, Cam Stewart ’12, Rebecca Staudemaier ’12, Kate Belew ’15, and Jasmine An ’15. Maggie Jackson ’11 and Amy Newday had nonfiction published in the magazine.  Newday coordinates the College’s Writing Center. And Grabowski’s interview with Michigan poet Laura Kasischke appears as well. Kasischke recently won the Rilke Prize, and she will read works from her new collection, Space, In Chains, on campus this April 16. Chief Editor for The Smoking Poet is Zinta Aistars, who worked for Kalamazoo College for many years.

“The Cauldron” Unveiled

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Cauldron program previewBy Elaine Ezekiel ’13

“Sight and Voice Revealed: Unveiling the Cauldron,” was the theme of the Week 6 (May 4) Community Reflection in Stetson Chapel. With support from the Student Activities Fee, each member of the audience received a free copy of the 32nd edition of the literary magazine, which features art, photography, and writing created by K students.

Editors Cam Stewart ’12 and Rebecca Staudenmaier ’12 discussed the Cauldron’s ability to unite students across interests and talents:

“We are the community bound at the book’s spine,” said Staudenmaier.

Writer-in-Residence Diane “Di” Seuss presented the Stephanie Vibbert Award to Erin Donevan ’12. This accolade memorializes the English/psychology double-major from Class of 2003 who died during her senior year at K. The award honors a current student whose writing exemplifies the intersection between creative writing and community engagement. Seuss said that Vibbert would have endorsed Donevan’s work promoting creative writing in Botswana and Kalamazoo.

The College’s Writing Center Director Amy Newday announced the three winners of the Divine Crow Award, which is bestowed on writers of outstanding Cauldron entries. Newday said the winners “wove connections for me through time, space and experience.” They were Paul Lovaas ’13 (for his nonfiction short story “Darkrooms”), Fran Hoepfner ’13 (for her poem “to shatter when dropped”), and Kelly Bush ’12 (for her fantasy short story “Ariadne”). Each student read excerpts from their winning work.

Divine Crow Award runners-up were Umang Varma ’14, Carolyn Stordeur ’12 and Nicholas Canu ’12.

Community Reflection offers a unique forum for discussion, worship, performance, and community expression each Friday at 10:50 AM (refreshments at 10:30) in Stetson Chapel. The entire campus community and general public are invited. Week 7 (May 11) Reflection will be “Perspectives from a Global K,” in which members of the International Student Organization share their experiences and reflections about current global issues

Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss Receives Accolades for Outstanding Poetry

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Kalamazoo College’s Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss ’78 continues to receive accolades for her outstanding work in the world of poetry. A sample of a few recent honors follow–honors that help put Kalamazoo College, on Di’s coattails, on the literary map!

First, she will be teaching the “Advanced Seminar,” with poets Patrick Donnelly and Reginald Dwayne Betts, at the Frost Place this summer, located at Robert Frost’s homestead in Franconia, New Hampshire. In the fall, she has been invited to be the McLean Distinguished Visiting Writer at Colorado College.  That position has been held by many distinguished writers, including Ghanaian poet and cultural activist Kofi Anyidoho, feminist film theorist Tania Modelski, Canadian novelist Nino Ricci, and Irish poet Eamon Grennan.

At Colorado College, Di will be teaching the Advanced Seminar in Poetry. In addition, Di was named the winner of the Summer Literary Seminars contest in poetry because of three of her poems, which will appear in Black Warrior Review later in the year.  The contest winner also receives airfare, tuition, and housing for one of the Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania or Kenya.  Di will go to Kenya. And, most recently, Di learned that her poem “Either everything is sexual, or nothing is. Take this flock of poppies,” has been selected for reprint in Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses. The Pushcart Prize honors the best poetry, short fiction, and short nonfiction published in literary magazines in the previous year.

Congratulations, Di!