Prairie Schooner to launch second edition of arts and literature series Fusion
Prairie Schooner, the University of Nebraska’s internationally-recognized literary magazine, is excited to announce its next release of the new arts and literature series Fusion. A fresh online series featuring collaborations between Prairie Schooner and interesting, innovative online literary entities and individuals from around the world, Fusion seeks to create dynamic alliances in literature and art. Fusion 1 featured a collaboration with Cordite Poetry Review focusing on work. Fusion 2 continues the themed trend by focusing on womb, while featuring a partnership with Batswana poets and artists.
Marianne Kunkel, managing editor of Prairie Schooner, will be co-curating Fusion 2 with TJ Dema, a Botswana-based poet who runs SAUTI an events, arts and performance management organization.
“Taking on such a decision-making role as curator of the upcoming Fusion was thrilling,” says Kunkel. “Prairie Schooner exceeded my expectations regarding the number of candid and eccentric womb-themed poems that appeared in its pages in the last eighty-six years. I’m extremely pleased with the online conversation that TJ Dema and I facilitated across continents and generations—a conversation not only about the womb but about women’s bodies as whole entities.”
The featured Batswana artist will be Sedrieng Olehile Mothibatsela. Kelly Manning, a graduate of the University of Nebraska, will be the featured Nebraska artist. Her exhibition record includes the multi-national juried North American Graduate Art Survey at the University of Minnesota.
Featured Batswana poets include the former Iowa fellow, Barolong Seboni; the 2011 international slam champion for the African poetry express slam held in Zimbabwe, Mandisa Mabuthoe; and the winner of a Farrago prize, Andreattah Chuma. All prize-winning poets have read their work in countries around the world.
In addition, Prairie Schooner features classic work from its archive, with poetry by Alicia Ostriker, Linda Hogan, Stephen Dunn, and Ruth Stone. Prairie Schooner has, over eighty-six years, managed to create a fascinating archive of American letters and the work featured in Fusion represents poems published in the last few decades by some of the most recognizable American poets and by gifted poets who are still lesser known.
Fusion is an opportunity to create dialog across geographical spaces and cultures through the sharing of art and writing. It represents an effort to create bridges and to do so by asking writers to think about the very things that connect distinguish them in different parts of the world.
The next Fusion will launch Nov. 1 and will be home-themed, collaborating with Balkan poets and curator Nikola Madzirov. View the Fusion archives at Prairie Schooner’s website featuring the art of Michelle Ussher and Watie White, as well as poems, audio, and interviews.