Background
Kathryn Stripling Byer was born in Camilla, Georgia in 1944.
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book
Wildwood Flower: Poems
(In Wildwood Flower, Kathryn Stripling Byer speaks through...)
In Wildwood Flower, Kathryn Stripling Byer speaks through the fictional voice of a mountain woman named Alma, who lived in the Blue Ridge wilderness around the turn of the century. In narrative and lyric, Byer's poems sing a journey through solitude, capturing the spirit and the sound of mountain ballads and of the women who sang them, stitching bits and pieces of their hardscrabble lives into lasting patterns.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807117706/?tag=2022091-20
Coming to Rest: Poems
("There is about Byer's lines something of the art of the ...)
"There is about Byer's lines something of the art of the woodcut, a starkness made the more powerful by modesty of presentation, a certain wintriness of aspect that cloaks a smoldering sensibility. This is a mode, we might think, that she does not choose but is chosen by." -Fred Chappell, Shenandoah Taking as her touchstone poet Seamus Heaney's verse "We come back emptied, / to nourish and resist / the words of coming to rest," Kathryn Stripling Byer in these poems engages the contradictions inherent in the act of coming home. She explores the step-by-step leaving and returning-and finding "home" transformed because of the journey. Seamless lines of poetry weave together experiences as a daughter and a mother, the challenges of aging, the innate dignity of domestic life, and learning to let go while holding fast to what matters all the while. Byer gathers the trivial things that make up our lives and shows their meaningful connections, our movement toward discovery. In Coming to Rest, she expands upon the great themes of the poetic tradition. Kathryn Stripling Byer has published four previous books of poetry, including Catching Light, winner of the Southeast Booksellers Association Award for Poetry. Among her other accolades are the Lamont Poetry Selection for Wildwood Flower, the Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Prize and the Brockman-Campbell Award for Black Shawl, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and appointment as Poet Laureate of North Carolina. She lives in Cullowhee, located in the western mountains of the state.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807131350/?tag=2022091-20
Black Shawl: Poems
(Black Shawl emanates from Kathryn Stripling Byer's fascin...)
Black Shawl emanates from Kathryn Stripling Byer's fascination with female ballad singers in southern Appalachia, whose voices haunt the mountains still, and from the image of a black net or shawl being dragged over the ground, plumbing the depths, collecting bits and fragments of a woman's life. The singers and storytellers of this collection are struggling to answer the query of the book's epigraph: "What will you make of this?"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807122513/?tag=2022091-20
(Coming to Rest: Poems) Author: Kathryn Stripling Byer published on (April, 2006)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Y2ZUAE0/?tag=2022091-20
Kathryn Byer
Edit ProfileEducation
There she studied under Allen Tate, Fred Chappell, and Robert West. Watson.
Career
She was named by Governor Mike Easley as the fifth North Carolina Poet Laureate, 2005–2009 and was the first woman to hold the position. Early life and education Byer went on to graduate with a bachelors in English from Macon, Georgia"s Wesleyan College and then received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. During this time at University of North Carolina-G, Byer decided to move to the mountains of North Carolina.
After receiving her Master of Fine Arts, Byer became poet-in-residence at Western Carolina University, 1988-1998, as well as University of North Carolina-G in 1995 and Lenoir-Rhyne College in 1999.
She has published six full collections of poetry as well as some chapbooks. Her most recent collection is Descent published in 2012 by Louisiana State University Press.
Poet laureateship In 2005, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley appointed Byer to be the state"s fifth poet laureate following Fred Chappell whose term ended in 2002. She was the first woman to hold the position.
As part of her outreach program during her term as poet laureate, Byer maintained "My Laureate"s Lasso", a blog that focused on North Carolina poets and poetry.
She was also the judge for the North Carolina Poetry Society"s Poet Laureate Award. 1992 – Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets.
Achievements
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1992 – Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets 1998 – Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry 2001 – Emory and Henry College"s Kathryn Stripling Byer Literary Festival 2001 – North Carolina Award in Literature 2003 – SIBA Book Award in Poetry for Catching Light 2005–2009 – North Carolina Poet Laureate 2012 – inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame 2013 – SIBA Book Award in Poetry for Descent.
Works
book
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Black Shawl: Poems
(Black Shawl emanates from Kathryn Stripling Byer's fascin...)
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Coming to Rest: Poems
("There is about Byer's lines something of the art of the ...)
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Wildwood Flower: Poems
(In Wildwood Flower, Kathryn Stripling Byer speaks through...)
- (Coming to Rest: Poems) Author: Kathryn Stripling Byer published on (April, 2006)
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Black Shawl: Poems
