Founder's Focus

For this edition of the Founder’s Blog we thought we’d focus on the VSC Writing Program, especially the emergence of the  Literature in Translation (LiT) Program, which brings international writers and translators to VSC.  In the coming months, we will be welcoming writers from Cuba, Israel, Lebanon, Nigeria, China, Vietnam, Korea, Poland, Mexico, and Guatemala for residencies at VSC, as well as translators working with texts in their original Chinese, Swedish, Polish, French, and Portugese. It is hard to believe that less than a year ago there had rarely been an international writer or translator at VSC.

So where did this begin … ?  I can remember sitting with Jon and Jill and poet Rosanna Warren, in Jon’s green adirondack chairs, in August of 2007, talking about what a perfect sanctuary VSC could someday be for international writers.  Not only was it a good idea but it made sense: VSC had been hosting hundreds of visual artists from all over the world for the past 15 years, so why not writers?  We could see so clearly the pairs of writers and translators who would work at VSC together, the variety of countries represented, the bi-lingual readings, the global connections that would develop … what we could not see that summer, however, was just how quickly this new dimension of VSC would spring to life.

This story also begins with the opening of Maverick Studios in January 2007, which created 16 new writing studios along the Gihon river. Then came our friend and publisher Roland Pease, and translator Cris Mattison, and VSC alumna Deborah Clearman, and translator and VSC neighbor David Hinton; soon we were meeting with poet Bei Dao and creating new friendships with Zoland Poetry, ALSCW, Polish Cultural Institute, and Jintian Literary Fund, and with individuals who took a leap of faith and pledged those first LiT fellowship contributions … add the steadfast support of the VSC Trustees and staff, and it’s no surprise what we’ve been able to accomplish in such a short time.

Over the summer, I’ll send a blog update or two with photos and reading podcasts as the 2010 international writing residency season unfolds.  I would love to hear from you (by email or at 802-635-2727 x231), and hope to see you over the course of the year either here at VSC or elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Gary Clark
Writing Program Director

PS – Here I am last fall with LiT pioneers: Chinese poet Ouyang Jianghe, his translator Austin Woerner, and poet/translator Cole Swenson (here as a VSC Visiting Writer) .

March Visiting Artists:

Jon Imber	Angelo Ciotti
Carol Hepper	Marjorie Portnow

March Visiting Writers:

Excerpt from Follow Me
By Joanna Scott

THIS WAS RURAL PENNSYLVANIA in the fall of 1947–a world of mud, sickly elms, stubbled hayfields, and backyard industries. The Tuskee was even dirtier then than now, or at least polluted in a different way, with a film of soot coating the surface and cement dust ending up as sludge along the banks. In the village where Georgie and her relatives lived, Fishkill Notch, the creek from the spring on Thistle Mountain met the Fishkill Creek. With the headwaters pouring in from the upper slopes, the water in Fishkill Notch spread into a deeper channel that on maps is marked as the start of the Tuskee River.

Hidden between its marshy banks, the river didn’t draw attention to itself as it ran through the village. Anglers cast their lines there, but mostly the river flowed on without being noticed by the residents, and without noticing them.

Georgie’s house was on a side road off of Main Street. Mason’s house, though, was perched on a mound of land close to the wedge where the Fishkill bends into the Tuskee. In the spring and fall and after heavy rains, the sound of the river would make Sally Werner think that a storm was blowing in and wind was pouring through the trees. Years later, when she heard static on the radio or the TV, she’d think of Mason’s house and the Tuskee rushing past.

Excerpt from Kamby Bolongo Mean River
By Robert Lopez

These doctors in their white coats and clipboards are not smart people.  You can tell by how they mumble like Mother gave them too many pills.  You can also tell how they’re not good at helping people get better.  Charlie’s camp counselors were the same way and it was a tragedy what happened there.

Charlie was away at camp for two whole summers and always said he was getting better when we spoke on the phone but the truth was he never did.

I could tell the minute he walked through the door he wasn’t any better.

Mother could tell too which is why she sat us down at the kitchen table that one time and asked what do we want to do with our lives.  Charlie said it was either boxer or priest and I said as long as they have air conditioning I’ll do anything.

Then we asked is that right Mother.
Mother said whatever you do don’t become doctors in white coats and clipboards or camp counselors and everything will be fine.

April Visiting Artists and Writers:

Carol Frost

Carole Robb

Ward Shelley

Colin Chase

Clytie Alexander

Alice Notley

A Selection of Recent Resident Portraits:

Photos by Howard Romero

March 2010 Residents:

Photo by Howard Romero

Photo by Howard Romero

Thamarat Phokai, sculptor and March 2010 resident, lives in Bangkok, Thailand and is a recipient of the The Freeman Foundation Fellowship. Watch the video below of a performance piece from his recent Red Mill Gallery opening on March 17, 2010.

March 2010 resident, Ang Tsherin Sherpa, was born in Kathmandu, Nepal. At age 12, he began studying thangka painting under the guidance of his father, Master Urgen Dorje. Ang Tsherin now lives in Oakland, California where he continues to paint and teach thangka. The video below is from his VSC gallery opening. on March 24, 2010. Visit his website to learn more.

LiT poet Kester Osahenye from Nigeria reading at VSC, April 4, 2010.

Photo credit:  Brian Simpson

Over a two-week period this March Eddi Prabandono, 2010 Freeman Fellow of Yokyakarta, Indonesia acquainted the students of Johnson Elementary School with Wayang, the 1000-year-old Indonesian tradition of shadow puppetry. Using chipboard donated by the Burlington Free Press, Eddi demonstrated the puppet-making process and worked with JES 5/6 graders to draw larger than life animals and imaginary characters, with finely detailed cut outs and moving appendages. On his last visit to the classroom, Eddi, sculptor and VSC trustee Susie Cronin, VSC Visiting Artist Angelo Ciotti, School Art Program founder Andrea Pearlman, VSC staff artist Arista Alanis, and March resident Clay Warren joined with JES 5/6 graders in an improvised shadow puppetry performance for the 45 kindergarteners. After the show, the performers invited the younger students behind the screen and showed them how to hold and to move the shadow puppets.

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