It is my pleasure to introduce our judge for Springtime 2012 IBPC, the sharp, smart, and remarkable Shara McCallum, director of the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University, where she also teaches creative writing and literature. We have poet Laurie Byro to thank for making the connection and arrangements for her to judge and become an important part of us. As you'll find in the links below, and I was tempted to start with the videos, Shara received the 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry, and has also been awarded the Tennessee Individual Artist Grant in Literature, a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant, and the 1998 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. Originally from Jamaica, she sees herself "as a Caribbean writer. Also a Jamaican writer, an American writer, an African American writer, a West Indian writer, a woman writer." And as I write, she is already reading our poems for the April contest. (Thank you, Shara!) Now we can read hers! Links below.

Poetry Collections

This Strange Land

Song of Thieves

The Water Between Us

Interviews

Here Comes Everybody: Shara McCallum

SmartishPace: An Interview with Shara McCallum

Poems

Poetry Foundation: The Art Room

National Endowment for the Arts: Writers' Corner: At the Hanover Museum

WasabiNet: Dear History

The Antioch Review: Facing It

ars poetica: For Rachel, Just before Speech

Bucknell University: A Grammar for War

Voices: History is a Room

College Park: Jamaica, October 18, 1972

The Caribbean Review of Books: Manchineel

Geoffrey Philp, author of Who's Your Daddy?: Miss Sally on Politics

The Murder Mile: An Offering

Juniata College: Penelope (pdf)

Rachel writes: The Perfect Heart

College Park: Seed

Used Bookstore Poetry: Six Ways of Envisioning Loss

theblackbottom: What I’m telling you [excerpt]

College Park: Yu no send. Me no come.

Audio

WPSU (Penn State): This Strange Land by Shara McCallum

Maine Humanities Council: Shara McCallum

Video

Conversations: Shara McCallum

Shara McCallum, Director of the Stadler Center for Poetry

Shara McCallum - The Face of Water: New and Selected Poems

Shara McCallum: The Process of Writing Poetry

Essays

The Caribbean Review of Books: Family treasure

Geoffrey Philp, author of Who's Your Daddy?: In My Own Words: Shara McCallum




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