NEH Flannery O'Connor, Poetry and Us

On Tuesday, December 12th at 7 p.m. join the NEH Summer Institute on Flannery O'Connor as the participants share their poetry! This event, hosted by Craig Martell, will feature both original poetry, as well as a discussion on how poetry influenced Flannery O'Connor. Register at bit.ly/FOCpoetry to receive the Zoom link.

Please feel free to join us for Flannery O'Connor, Poetry and Us, featuring poetry from:

John Davis: John Davis Jr. is the author of The Places That Hold (Eastover Press, 2021), Middle Class American Proverb (Negative Capability Press, 2014), and three other poetry collections. His work has been published in Nashville Review, The Common, Salvation South and elsewhere, and he is the recipient of the Florida Book Awards bronze medal for poetry, the Sidney Lanier Poetry Prize and other literary laurels. He holds an MFA from University of Tampa, and he teaches English and Creative Writing for Jesuit High School, also in Tampa. 

Ann Ritter: Ann Ritter has most recently published poems in Dos Gatos: Persona of the Southwest; ADANNA: Women and Spirituality; Earth First; The Southern Poetry Anthology (Georgia); Gathered: An anthology of Quaker poets; and Elements. Her review of Joseph Bathanti’s The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost appeared in 2017’s Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, where she has also published poems. Her fiction, essays and poetry have appeared in Charleston Magazine; Confrontation; Earth’s Daughters; THEMA; Georgia Journal and the anthology, Like a Summer Peach: Sunbright Poems and Old Southern Recipes. Ann has studied in the summer writing intensive at Bennington College, VT, received an artist-initiated grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts in fiction and poetry and has been a fellow in the Flannery O’Connor Summer Institute at Georgia College, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. A former business journalist and communications professional, she is currently a clinical instructor in strategic business communication planning at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business, Atlanta.

Ashley Massey: Ashley Massey holds a MA in Literature and writes academically in the fields of Southern Gothic literature and Critical Prison Studies. She currently teaches writing and literature courses in jails and prisons, including through the University of North Alabama’s Restorative Justice Lab. She resides on a farm in rural Middle Tennessee where she is a small business owner, cattle caretaker and community organizer. She was a participant in the NEH Summer Institute: Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor. Her poetry has appeared in The Red Branch Review, Lights and Shadows and Pink Apple Press, and she recently released a gothic farm-themed poetry book titled Keep the gate open.

Doni Wilson: Doni Wilson is Professor of English at Houston Christian University where she has taught for two decades. She received her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has taught at Elon University, the University of Houston, the University of Saint Thomas and writing organizations, such as Writespace. She has covered the arts in Houston for over a decade and has written for numerous publications including the Houston Chronicle, Houstonia, Houston Press, The Awl, The Federalist, The Pillars, Ten Spurs and The Pisgah Review. 

Angela Alaimo O'Donnell: Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, PhD is a professor, poet, scholar and writer at Fordham University in New York City and serves as Associate Director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Her publications include two chapbooks and eight full-length collections of poems. Her most recent book of poems Holy Land (2022) won the Paraclete Press Poetry Prize. In addition, O’Donnell has published a memoir about caring for her dying mother, Mortal Blessings: A Sacramental Farewell; a book of hours based on the practical theology of Flannery O’Connor, The Province of Joy; and a biography Flannery O’Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith . The latter won the Catholic Press Association Prize for best biography in 2015. Her ground-breaking critical book on Flannery O’Connor Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor was published by Fordham University Press in 2020. O’Donnell’s ninth book of poems, Dear Dante, will be released by Paraclete Press in Spring 2024.

And the host, Craig Martell: Craig Martell is a 74 year old retired business man from Milwaukee, WI. He has a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Wisconsin and a Master’s in Accounting from DePaul. Since Fall, 2019, he has “curated” a total of nine Osher Lifelong Learning five-part series Introducing Flannery O’Connor. This initiative was graciously supported by a host of well-recognized “O’Connor Guest Scholars” who shared their insights on O’Connor and her fiction over Zoom. This background supported Craig’s attendance at the 2023 NEH Summer Institute, Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor.  While there, he met and befriended the four poets with us this evening, hearing their poetry at the Institute’s “Open Mic” nights at the Blackbird Café. While not a poet himself, he enjoys that of others and is intrigued with Flannery’s understated appreciation for poetry and its mystical effect on her writing. He has an understanding, tolerant wife and two daughters—one in Milwaukee and one in Charlotte—three grandsons, and one granddaughter! He is a definitely promised community member of the Secular Discalced Carmelites.