Thursday, December 12, 7:30 p.m.
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in downtown Asheville is proud to announce an evening of poetry with five of Asheville’s finest poets: Caleb Beissert, Landon Godfrey, Beth Keefauver, Griffin Payne and Eric Steineger. Admission: $7 / $5 for BMCM+AC members & students
Caleb Beissert is a poet, translator, musician, and freelance writer from Washington, D.C., now living in Asheville, North Carolina. His work has appeared in International Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Asheville Poetry Review, WNC Magazine, The Citron Review, and Beatitude: Golden Anniversary, 1959-2009. Beissert’s first book, a selection of English-language adaptations of the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca, Beautiful: Translations from the Spanish, was published by New Native Press in 2013. In 2008 Beissert was granted the honor of participating in the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series, culminating in a reading with North Carolina Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers at Western Carolina University’s Literary Festival. The following summer, he studied Reformation literature while traveling throughout Europe. Beissert earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Professional Writing, and Cultural Studies from Western Carolina University in May of 2009. Beissert hosts a weekly open mic at Vanuatu Kava Bar and produces the monthly reading series “Poetry at the Altamont” at the Altamont Theatre in downtown Asheville.
Landon Godfrey is a poet and artist. Her books include Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Soufflé Chiffon Gown (2011), selected by David St. John for the 2009 Cider Press Review Book Award, and two limited-edition letterpress chapbooks, In the Stone (RAPG-funded artist’s book, 2013) and Spaceship (Somnambulist Tango Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in The Southeast Review, Beloit Poetry Review, POOL, Studium in Polish translation, Best New Poets 2008, Verse Daily, Broadsided, and elsewhere. More information: www.landongodfrey.com
Beth Keefauver’s fiction has appeared in The Citron Review, Pisgah Review, Stirring, Blue Lotus Review, Press 53 Blog, and is forthcoming in two anthologies. She has taught literature and writing for Lenoir-Rhyne University, the Great Smokies Writing Program, Warren Wilson College, Western Carolina University, and the University of Tennessee, where she earned her PhD in English and Creative Writing. Beth has written and performed in the Asheville area for LYLAS, an all female comedy troupe, and “Listen to This,” a monthly storytelling series. She is a former fiction editor of Grist. Beth lives in Fairview, NC with her husband, two young sons, and cat.
Griffin Payne is an award-winning spoken word poet and community-arts educator. He is the founder and artistic director of the Ariadne Theater Project, a performance-based community-arts initiative within Western North Carolina’s mental health community. In 2011, He was named Poet Laureate of the Radical Faeries and has since featured on stages in Paris, New York, and throughout the South. To learn more about his work, visit www.griffinpayne.com
Eric Steineger teaches English in Western North Carolina. His work has been featured in Asheville Poetry Review, Elimae, and The Los Angeles Review, among other publications. He is the Senior Poetry Editor for The Citron Review, an online journal with roots in California. In spare moments, he can be found in East Asheville with his wife, Mackensy.
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center preserves and continues the unique legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College for public study and enjoyment. We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs.
