BY BIANCA SPRIGGS
“Wild women don’t get the blues,” Francine Reed wails on Lyle Lovett’s Live in Texas album. I submit that wild women sometimes do get the blues, but rather than whine about it, real wild women write poems. And they probably also drink bourbon, aren’t afraid of dark eyeliner, have been known to wear stacked-heel cowboy boots and pour their souls out onstage (to name just a few wild women traits).
On Sunday evening, a throng of ladies will descend on the Green Lantern for the second annual Wild Women of Poetry reading, a teaser event for the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. Yours truly will be hosting an evening of poetry and music featuring the talents of: Lisa Williams, Tina Andry, Carrie Green, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, and Sunny Montgomery. Heather Parrish from the band June July will be on hand to kick off the night with songs and original poems and Coralee and the Townies trio will send us home. The fun starts at 8 PM with a suggested donation of $5 at the door.
Now, just so you know, some of these women may be demure in delivery, but there is nothing safe or predictable about their poems. You can read about a few of our featured women here and will have to see the rest for yourself tomorrow. And, just for the record, if you can’t get enough of these wild women, there will be some more in store during the conference. The Gypsy Poetry Slam will be celebrating its fifth consecutive year this year and bringing in spoken word artists and femme poets from across the country featuring the literary and verbal gymnastics of Rae Hodge (Louisville), Donna Ison (defending 2009 champ from Lexington), Amanda Johnston (Austin), Ami Mattison (Hazel Park, MI), Lauren Zuniga (Oklahoma City, OK), Laura Yes Yes (Chicago), Rebekah Hargis (Louisville), Lisa Marie (Covington), Grace Bruenderman (Lexington), and featuring National Book Award nominee and four-time National Poetry Slam champion, Patricia Smith. To find out more about the conference lineup taking place September 10-12, 2010, go here: http://www.uky.edu/WWK/
But before we get ahead of ourselves, meet:
Heather Parrish was recently seen performing in 2009 as Patsy Cline in Studio Players SOLD OUT shows of the Broadway Production of “Always… Patsy Cline” at Studio Players Theater. She was the lead vocalist for the band June July along side her fiance Billy Mason and good friend Jonny Keys. She’s now a new mother to her baby boy, Billy Jude, and plans to continue following her and Billy’s mutual dream to always share their love of music and art.
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer is the author of the bilingual poetry book, The Air around the Butterfly (Fakel Express, 2009), which won the 2010 Pencho’s Oak award, given annually to recognize literary contribution to contemporary Bulgarian culture. Her English language chapbook, The Most was published by Finishing Line Press in 2010. Katerina’s poems have appeared in publications throughout the US and Europe, including The Louisville Review, Margie, Adirondack Review and others. Katerina is the founder and leader of poetry and prose groups in Lexington, Kentucky. She hosts Accents – a radio show for literature, art and culture on WRFL, 88.1 FM, Lexington. In January 2010, Katerina launched Accents Publishing – an independent press for brilliant voices. Accents has published or announced books by local, national and international authors. Katerina holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, and is the recipient of the 2010 Eileen Egan Graduate Student Leadership Award. She serves on the advisory board of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference.
Carrie Green earned her MFA at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gulf Stream, ABZ, Saw Palm, Kestrel, Georgetown Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Limestone, and the Journal of Kentucky Studies. She received a 2005-2006 Artist Fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and received professional development funding from the Kentucky Arts Council to attend a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Â Recently, she was named a finalist for the 2010 Arts & Letters Poetry Prize.
Tina Andry was born in uptown New Orleans. She was eleven when she was uprooted and transplanted to Burgin, Ky far removed from anything familiar. The stark contrast in environments was the catalyst for her to pick up a pen. She joined Lexington’s writing community in 2009 by sharing her poetry at the Holler Poet’s Series open mic and in turn will be a feature this October. Since then she has participated in the opening of the 2009 Gypsy Poetry Slam, was a guest reader on Accents- a radio show for literature, art and culture on WRFL, and put herself out on a limb in the University of Kentucky’s 2009 V-Day production of the Vagina Monologues, moaning her way into infamy. She is a poet and mother who loves her dog Jada only slightly less than her two children Kennedy and Miles.
