June 2, 2018
Mary Pinard in the Flint Hills, Summer 2017 photo by Patty Reece
4 pm | Reading by Mary
Free admission | Refreshments
5:15 – 7:30 pm | Poetry in the Flint Hills
enjoy sweeping views and the quiet light of late afternoon
$40 per person
Reservations are limited. Please reserve soon.
Proceeds benefit art exhibits and free community programming at The Volland Store.
We greatly appreciate your support.
MARY PINARD, Poet, returns to the Flint Hills for a residency at Volland, May 30 – June 6.
Over the last 15 years, Ms. Pinard has collaborated with several visual artists and musicians in the Boston area with poetry that focuses on, explores, and/or addresses art in some way. Called ekphrastic poems, Pinard will offer one or two of her own in response to a painting by artist Lynn Benson in her current exhibit at the gallery, “River Compositions.” Mary will also talk about her collaboration with Boston-area sculptor Andrea Thompson, which is part of Breath and Matter: Poet/Sculptor Collaborations, an exhibit at the Boston Sculptors Gallery, which will be open from July 18-August 12, 2018.
Mary’s more recent work has been consumed by her love of and concern for the prairie. Following her reading at the gallery, there will be a special opportunity to combine poetry with the natural beauty of the Flint Hills. Participants (reservations required) will caravan to a nearby ranch where they will experience hills with sweeping views and the quiet light of the late afternoon as Mary reads again. She is extending an invitation to guests to read a poem of their own or to bring a favorite by another poet.
MARY PINARD‘s work continues to center around the prairie and related issues of loss, both in terms of environmental imperilment and personal explorations of grief. This summer she plans to research and begin drafting a sequence of experimental poems on aspects of the history (natural and cultural), ecology, and role of disturbance (climate, fire, grazing, settlement, agriculture) in the Flint Hills. She says of this work: “While this is a new project for me, it builds on thinking and writing I have been doing for over 10 years about the prairie as a significant but largely underappreciated and vanishing ecosystem. For example, my most recent manuscript of poems, “Ghost Maps,” explores the histories implicit in landscapes—which are of course memoryscapes, tribescapes, culturescapes, narrativescapes, ancestorscapes, languagescapes—and centers around a 10-poem sequence, “Prairie.” This long poem traces the geological beginnings of the prairie through its current state as mostly morselized, or lost altogether, except of course for certain intact parcels, or those areas that have been preserved thanks to conservation efforts, or those that, by chance and the virtue of their geological character and topography, have largely resisted cultivation. The Flint Hills is one of these. I’m looking forward to returning to this resonant and rich place and its most generous and welcoming people.”
Mary teaches poetry and literature at Babson College in Wellesley, MA. She earned a B.A. in English and Theatre from Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, IN), an M.A. in English from University of Chicago, and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Vermont College. She was born and raised in Seattle.
Professor Pinard’s poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals—including The Iowa Review, Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Georgia Review—with new work appearing recently in Crab Orchard Review. She has been the recipient of several national awards for her poetry, and Portal, her first collection of poems, was published in 2014 by Salmon Press (Ireland). Her essays on poetics and poets, including Alice Oswald and Lorine Niedecker, have been published in critical anthologies and scholarly journals.
More information about her poetry, public readings, and publications can be found at www.marypinard.com.
Notes on Poetry in the Flint Hills
“We love the Flint Hills at all times of day and in all seasons, but viewing The Flint Hills in the late afternoon light from a high hill is one of our favorite rituals. We are happy to share it with you. ” – Patty and Jerry Reece, from the Ranch on Trails End Road
Following Mary’s reading at the Volland Store, drive over to Trail’s End. A map will be provided after your reservation is received. We will gather at the bunkhouse for beverages and “lite bites” before loading up in the ranch pick-ups and the Polaris to drive up into the hills. Bring a lawn chair or blanket for comfortable seating on the prairie.
As we settle in to the grass and drink in the views, the light and the sounds, Mary will read her poetry that will no doubt resonate with the land surrounding us. You too are invited to share a poem- one of your own or of another. or sketch. or make photos. or just absorb the beauty. As the sun lowers in the sky, we will make our way down to the valley and bid our farewells. reluctantly.
Wear good walking shoes, long pants, and a hat. If weather conditions are questionable, the late afternoon will be spent on the screened porch of the bunkhouse (which is pretty nice too).
The Volland Store
24098 Volland Road, eight miles southwest of Alma, Kansas.
Open Saturdays and Sundays 12-5 pm and by appointment 785-499-3616.
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