19th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival - Friday Afternoon/Evening, April 5

During the lunch break, poets seemed to scatter, & we found some at the Brickhouse on Main St., where Ron Wallace shared some of his “cat fries” with me, otherwise known as “Prairie oysters” or “Colorado oysters”, depending where you are; I wonder what they call them in the Adirondacks?

Back to the readings, & I opted for the 3 readers at the Regents Room, all new writers to me.

Heather Levy is a born and bred Oklahoman and graduate of Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA program for creative writing. She read a couple chapters from her forthcoming novel Hurt for Me, 1st selection from chapter 1 in which the protagonist, a woman named Echo, is on the run & shops for pre-natal vitamins. The 2nd selection was from later in the novel where Echo is undercover to help track down a sex-trafficing ring. Readers can follow her on X and IG @heatherllevy and explore her website at www.heatherlevywriter.com

I had met Cody Baggerly in earlier sessions, he was wearing a keffiyeh & I shared with him a copy of the Veterans For Peace newspaper Peace & Planet News with its articles on the destruction of the Gaza & the Palestinian people. He is a graduate of East Central University, where he received his degree in English and Literature. He read from a work-in-progress that might be called "Somewhere Between." He said that his biggest influences are the farm & house he grew up in, & the music that has influenced him. He read 2 pieces inspired by the Scissortail Festival, a piece just written from his memory of last year's festival, & another titled “This Morning” written last year about his mother (who was here today in the audience). As for the inspirations from music, he read his “most rejected poem,” “Rock’n’Roll Prairie Fire,” another on Summer in Oklahoma inspired by Bob Seeger, “Summer Fire” (John Fogarty), “Camp Fire Fortunes,” & 2 poems inspired by Sam Cooke’s songs. One poem not in his book was inspired by the attack on Gaza “Where Our Eyes Can’t See.”

Remi Recchia (he/him), PhD, is a trans poet, essayist, and editor from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He started with 2 walking poems, the 1st a love poem/memoir, the 2nd about his back spasm he named “Sparkie,” as if it were a dog. His pantoum titled “An Image” (which was of a statue of Adam & Eve) was about being trans, while a poem in the form of a golden shovel about the ending of a relationship used a line from Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a fly buzz …), & others. Again, it’s another reason to come here to be surprised by the work of writers I had not yet heard.

The last afternoon session (but not the last of the day) was in Estep Auditorium, for 3 veteran writers from Scissortail Festivals in the past.

Rob Roensch teaches at Oklahoma City University. He read from an early section in his novel, In The Morning, the City is the Prairie (Belle Point Press, 2023). The narrator is a high school dropout & the setting of the episode was a protest by teachers at a state capitol in 2018, vivid descriptions of the swirling crowds & the chaos that often happens at such events.

Cullen Whisenhunt, another graduate of Oklahoma City University's Red Earth MFA program, read from his new book Until Air Itself is Tinted (Turning Plow Press), a flock of poems about birds, geese, juncos, vultures, hawks, & even the Scissortail fly-catcher (of course!). Among others, he read an ekphrastic poem, a tornado poem, even a poem about a pig pasture, as well as a genre unique to Oklahoma, “the McAlester poem.” A total Oklahoma experience.

I first met Rilla Askew here at a Scissortail Festival when she & her husband Paul Austin were splitting their time between Oklahoma & Woodstock, NY; they’re now in Oklahoma full time. Rilla is the author of 5 novels, as well as books of shorter fiction. But today, for the 1st time at Scissortail she read her poetry. She began with “They Tell It Wrong” in the persona of Eve, & a poem on a related theme (i.e., snake) “Work.” She read poems on a rodeo, on immigrant workers (“Shadow Work Force”), a poem set in New Mexico, & “As If We Knew” reflecting on the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Prose, poetry, all good writing is putting one right word after another.

After a dinner break we were back in the Estep Auditorium for the reading by the featured reader, novelist Steve Yarborough. But 1st, a reading by this year’s winner of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest, Glory Curda, from Oklahoma City University, about driving through a snowstorm, “7AM Outside Gallup, New Mexico.” The judge of the contest was Denise Tolan, another graduate of The Red Earth MFA program. I hope to see Glory reading here in the future.

Mark Walling introduced Steve Yarborough, who is currently a professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College. One can find a detailed bio on the Scissortail Festival blog. He read from his most recent novel, Stay Gone Days (Ig Publishing, 2022), a section set in the segregated schools in Mississippi. A big part of the charm of this reading was Steve’s voice, a sonorous Mississippi accent. I don’t know if there is an audio-book version of the author reading, but if you see one you should check it out.

One can find bios of each of the readers at the festival at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Blog.