Biography

Martha McFerren received an MFA from Warren Wilson College and is the author of six books, including Women in Cars, for which she won the Marianne Moore Prize, and Archaeology at Midnight. Her poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. She has received an Artist Fellowship in Creative Writing from the Louisiana Arts Council, a Yaddo Fellowship, and a NEA Creative Writing Fellowship. She lives in New Orleans with her husband, woodturner Dennis Wall.

Schedule

10:15 am to 11:15 am
State Library, Fifth Floor, Capitol View Room
The Louisiana Poet Laureate Presents Louisiana Poets
with Gina Ferrara, Rodney Jones, Christine Kwon, Justin Lacour, Martha McFerren, Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith, and Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin

11:30 am to 12:15 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

The McFerren Plot: Poems

It’s the rare poet who speaks in a personal voice, rarer still one with an original point of view, and rarest of all a poet with both. This collection, richly varied in technique and topic, buzzes and swarms like a cloud of bumblebees. Little Lulu rubs shoulders with Maud Gonne and Pocahontas, Helen of Troy with François Villon. But bees have patterns, and so does McFerren. Her great topic is elusive the way the past lingers in the present. She emphasizes the mystery of it—how we see it as a light that flickers and flits, never to be fully caught. McFerren masters several tones: wry, laugh-out-loud funny, epiphanic, vatic, romantic, and sharp by turns. Hang on to your hats and keys.