Peace Corps writers

On January 9th, the anniversary of America’s former US Poet Laureate, the 2015 poetry award named for William Meredith was be conferred on Andrew Oerke by the William Meredith Foundation. Oerke who died in 2014, in his lifetime was the CEO of an environmental foundation, president of a microfinance organization, Peace Corps Director, Golden Gloves boxing champion, academic and a poet. “The poet has to write from the real stuff of life, the major concerns of the heart, and of life today,” he has said. Oerke believed that poetry was more than just words on a page, that it is a way of living and perceiving and relating to other people. For them, poetry can be useful in bringing about social justice and serve as a solution for changing the mind and spirit of mankind. “Hunger’s grip is cold stone,” Oerke has written of famine in Africa. “It does not . . .

Peace Corps Worldwide will be there in the guise of Peace Corps Writers. John and I are presenting two programs: “Peace Corps Memoirists Talk about Their Writing” Friday, June 5, 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm Unit 1 Dormitory Quad – APR (All Purpose Room) The panelists will be: Suzanne Adam, author of Marrying Santiago (Colombia 1964–66) Kay Gillies Dixon, author of Wanderlust Satisfied (Colombia 1962–64) Catherine Onyemelukwe, author of My Life and Loves Abroad (Nigeria 1962–64) Angene Wilson, author of Africa on My Mind: Educating Americans for Fifty Years (1962–64) Writing Your Peace Corps Memoir and Preparing Your Manuscript for Publication Saturday, June 6 – 9 AM– 10 AM Unit 1 – Deutsch John will talk writing; Marian, making your book a reality. Pre-conference social gathering We hope that all Peace Corps writers attending the conference will join us at FreeHouse, in Berkeley Thursday evening, June 4th from 7:30pm – . . .

Nigeria Revisited: My Life and Loves Abroad Catherine Onyemelukwe (Nigeria 1962–64) Peace Corps Writers October 2014 314 pages $14.62 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Marianne Arieux (Ethiopia 1965–67) • It is 1969. Former Peace Corps Volunteer and American Midwesterner, now Nigerian wife and mother, Catharine Onyemeluke nests with her family in her in-laws remote Igbo village, fleeing the encroaching Biafran war. For the first time since coming to Africa, she must become part of a rural African village without electricity, running water, or a health facility nearby; an undertaking that is a hallmark of Peace Corps training. Onyemelukwe’s telling of this particular venture highlights her achievement in this well written memoir — a tale of a young woman whose adventurous spirit carries her into a life path introduced and limned by the Peace Corps and its lore. Her book has the tone of a life-cycle epic. We are invited on . . .

A Writer Writes — Breaking Bread with Lindsay Lohan and Obama by Gerald Karey (Turkey 1965–67) • It was Lindsay Lohan’s attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw drew the line. Not at Ozzy Osbourne, Paula Jones, Larry Flint, Donald Trump or, Lord have mercy on us, Kim Kardashian. “The breaking point for me was Lindsay Lohan. She became a big star at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Give me a break,” Brokaw said after the 2013 dinner. “There was more dignity at my daughter’s junior prom than there is [at] what I’m seeing on C-SPAN there.” That may be an unfair comparison. Junior proms set a rather high bar. But cut Lindsay some slack. She may have been better behaved than the room full of liquored-up hacks. Her host, Greta van Susteren, who spins right-wing fables for Fox News, said: “The table . . .

Bartram’s Garden by Eleanor Stanford (Cape Verde 1998–2000) Carnegie Mellon University Press February 2015 82 pages $15.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Ann Neelon (Senegal 1978–79) • As luck and timing would have it, I come to Eleanor Stanford’s Bartram’s Garden just as a seemingly infinite number of Brood XXIII cicadas have emerged from their hidey holes in western Kentucky. I can’t imagine a better book to read to the accompaniment of the music of the spheres, as I keep calling the rattling surround sound produced in the resonant abdomens of the male cicadas clinging to the leaves of every tree, bush, and flower in our neighborhood. The last time I heard it — exactly thirteen years ago, in accordance with the periodicity of Brood XXIII — my children, who are now both almost out of the teenage years, were the same age as Stanford’s young children. If the home is a . . .

Keepers Meet Questing Eyes: Poems by John Michael Flynn (Moldova 1993-1995) Leaf Garden Press $6.00 120 pages 2014 Reviewed by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991-1993) • John Michael Flynn’s latest collection of poetry doesn’t come in a conventional package. Unlike a standard 6-by-9-inch poetry collection, with its requisite arty (or, on occasion, awful) cover, Flynn’s Keepers Meet Questing Eyes looks and feels more like a coloring book. But in a good-and fitting-way. Flynn’s poems don’t aspire to be arty or clever or coy. They’re honest evocations of life, and they invite the reader in the same way a coloring book invites children in: with generosity and without pretense. Of course Flynn’s poems are aimed at an adult readership, and their rewards lie in their directness and clarity. One of my favorites is “Heath,” about the actor Heath Ledger, who comes across in the poem as a good man despite his having . . .

Neighborhood Dogs by Gerald Karey (Turkey 1965-67) • POODLES, I THINK, were bred to be work dogs, although I’m uncertain what work they did. They were not intended to be primped, pampered and coiffed to within an inch of their dog lives, trimmed of most hair except for little puffs at their paws, rumps, shoulders and tails, and minced around at dog-shows like some foppish dandy at the French royal court. That’s no way to treat a dog. Adding insult to injury, recently I saw a tricked-out poodle in the neighborhood whose owner (and surely it wasn’t the dog’s decision), dyed each of those puffs of hair orange shading into purple. I was tempted to round on him (the owner, not the dog), accuse him of animal cruelty (or at least deep humiliation), and call the animal control agency and have the dog taken away. I didn’t, of course. The . . .

In the Friday, 15, 2015, issue of the WSJ writer Jennifer Maloney has a long and touching article entitled, “A Dying Writer’s Last Chapter” that is about Kent Haruf (Turkey 1965–67) and the novel he completed days before his death, Our Souls at Night. In the novel, Kent explores a highly personal story: finding love late in life. We reviewed the novel on this site several months ago. Take a look at the review by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03). Kent grew up in a steel-mill town in Colorado and went to Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln where he (like many writers) discovered Faulkner and Hemingway. He studied English and then joined the Peace Corps. It was in Turkey that he started writing short stories and while there he applied for admission to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He was rejected by them. He got a job. He got . . .

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com, click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. • Breathing the Same Air: A Peace Corps Romance by Gerry Christmas (Thailand 1973–76; Western Samoa 1976–78) Lulu April 2015 366 pages $22.99 (paperback) • Keepers Meet Questing Eyes (Poems) by John Michael Flynn (Moldova 1993-95) Leaf Garden Press July  2014 120 pages $6.08 (paperback) • Never Forgotten: Teaching in Rebellious Eritrea 1965-1967 & Returning After 35 Years by Paul E. Huntsberger (Ethiopia 1965–67) LifeRichPublishing October 2014 192 pages $14.95 (paperback) • Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse by Stanley Meisler (PC/W staff 1964-67 evaluation/research) Palgrave Macmillan April 2015 256 pages $26.00 (hard cover), $12.99 (paperback) • The . . .

Je suis Charlie. Je suis ne pas Charlie Hebdo. by Gerald Karey (Turkey 1965–67) • Until the massacre of the writers and cartoonist at the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, I had never seen the publication, nor was I familiar with its brand of outrageous satire. Adam Gopnik wrote in the Jan. 19 issue of The New Yorker: They worked instead in a peculiarly French and savage tradition, forged in a long nineteenth-century guerrilla war between republicans and the Church and the monarchy . . .. Charlie Hebdo was — will be again, let us hope — a satirical journal of a kind these days found in France almost alone . . .. The coarser and more scabrous cartoons that marked the covers of Charlie Hebdo — and took in Jesus and Moses, along with Muhammad; angry rabbis and ranting bishops, along with imams — were the latest example of that tradition.” The magazine was . . .

John Sherman (Nigeria 1966–66, Malawi 1967–68) and Chi Sherman have just published a collaborative, spoken-word CD — Shades: Writings on Race Culture Gender. The CD has 25 tracks of poetry and prose, with original music by Gabriel Harley. There will be a release party for the CD at Indy Reads Books 911 Massachusetts Avenue, Indianapolis IN on Saturday, May 9. For more information and to order the CD, write John at john@mesaverdepress.com