Delve Fall 2019 Literature Seminar: Literature of Modern and Contemporary Jewish American Women Writers
Guide: Willa Schneberg
Six sessions starting Tuesdays, September 17 – October 29, 2019
(no meeting on October 8)
6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
925 SW Washington St. Portland
In this seminar, we will discuss the “other” Jewish American writers—not Bellow, Roth, Pinsky or Chabon, but work by Jewish American women writers who have created a different canon. We will discuss work by Susan Sontag, Cynthia Ozick, Adrienne Rich, Marge Piercy and others arguably of their stature. We will explore the particular light Jewish women writers shine on the American Jewish experience and why their profound contributions to literature have often been overlooked. To learn more about this event click here.
The six-session seminar is $220 dollars click here to register. These sessions are accessible to everyone regardless of income and background. To learn more about Delve's Access Program which provides reduced tuition to qualifying participants click here. To learn more about Delve Scribes & Liaisons (Volunteer Options) click here: https://literary-arts.org/what-we-do/delve-home/volunteer-for-delve/
Mudhouse Residency
Agios Ioannis, Crete
Poet in Residence
Willa spent an idyllic two weeks at the Mudhouse Residency in Agios Ioannis, Crete with other artists working in a variety of genres: painting, animation, choreography, composition and photography. Agios Ioannis is a tiny hilly village where houses share walls with ruins, and at one end is a taverna and the other, a bar.
Cottage Tour
TINY MONUMENTS
For David Maisel, who photographed canisters holding the ashes of mental patients at a state hospital in Oregon.
The lyrics of Molly Mayo's song "Archipelago" were inspired by
"Tiny Monuments."
When human beings were still locked away
for sadness clinging to them like a marine layer,
hearing voices telling them how awful they are,
going fetal when cars backfire or corks pop,
they were housed at the Oregon State Insane Asylum,
and when they ceased to be, they were cremated.
If no one claimed a brother, a daughter, or a father,
the ashes were left in numbered copper canisters,
on pine shelves in an underground vault.
Not infrequently the water table rose
giving the forgotten homes uniquely their own,
coated with efflorescence and mineral dazzle,
where an alchemy of copper and water bloomed
and burst into color.
These tiny monuments to the scorned and unknown,
wear patinas of pink, burnt sienna, ocher, aqua,
and if you look closely you will find
moon craters, archipelagos, frozen waterfalls,
dunes with lone tracks, and Big Dippers
embedded in their pores.