June 23 - 30, 2012

The Poetry Program is founded on the belief that when poets gather in a community to write new poems, each poet may well break through old habits and write something stronger and truer than before. To help this happen we work together to create an atmosphere in which everyone might feel free to try anything. In the mornings we meet in workshops to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours; each participant also has an opportunity to work with each staff poet. In the late afternoons we gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft. On several afternoons staff poets hold brief individual conferences.

Tuition for the Poetry Program includes six evening meals and daily photocopying of poems. A limited amount of financial aid is available.

Poetry Director: Robert Hass
Note: We make no admissions decisions before all the submissions have been read and evaluated

In the mornings we meet in workshops to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours; each participant will have an opportunity to work with each staff poet. In the late afternoons we gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft. On several late afternoons staff poets hold brief individual conferences.

NATURE WALKS
Naturalist and writer, DAVID LUKAS, who usually leads walks during the week will not be able to join us this summer. However we will have another naturalist, TBA. There will be informative early morning walks up Shirley Canyon scheduled for 8:00 AM, before workshops begin at 10:00. This is an opportunity to learn from a professional naturalist about the biology of this valley. These walks are suitable for almost all fitness levels and are free of charge. We hope David will return in 2013.

LAKE TAHOE
On Wednesday we will go to Lake Tahoe for the afternoon and evening. Poet softball will be played at the local elementary school for those who are interested, followed by a BBQ picnic at the spectacular Meeks Bay on the Lake. Poets may swim, hike the nearby trails to view abundant wild-flowers, or just relax. We return to Squaw Valley at nightfall.

POETRY READING
On Thursday evening Kazim Ali, Robert Hass, Sharon Olds, Claudia Rankine and C.D. Wright will read from their published and unpublished work, including poems written in Squaw Valley just days before. Their books will be available for sale and signing after the reading.

	KAZIM ALI is a poet, essayist, fiction writer and translator. His books include several volumes of poetry, including The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books' New England/New York Award, The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions), and the cross-genre text Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press). Last year, Omnidawn Press published a translation of Water's Footfall by Sohrab Sepehri. His novels include Quinn's Passage (blazeVox books), named one of "The Best Books of 2005" by Chronogram magazine and The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press), and his books of essays include Orange Alert: Essays on Poetry, Art and the Architecture of Silence (University of Michigan Press), and last year’s Fasting for Ramadan (Tupelo Press). In addi- tion to co-editing Jean Valentine: This-World Companyfrom the Under Discussion series of the University of Michigan Press, he is a contributing editor for AWP Writers Chronicle and associate editor of the literary magazine FIELD and founding editor of the small press Nightboat Books. He is an associate professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Oberlin College and teaches in the Masters of Fine Arts program of the University of Southern Maine.
	ROBERT HASSis a poet, translator and essayist. Ecco/HarperCollins is publishing his forthcoming book of prose, What Light Can Do: Essays 1985- 2010. His other recent books include his selected poems, The Apple Trees at Olema (Ecco/HarperCollins), Time and Materials (Ecco/ HarperCollins), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and his edition of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Other Poems (Counterpoint). His other books of poetry include Sun Under Wood: New Poems, Human Wishes, Praise, and Field Guide. He has also co-translated many volumes of the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz and is the author or editor of several other collections of essays and translations, including The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa; Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry; and Now & Then: The Poet's Choice Columns 1996- 2000. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. Awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Critics Circle Award twice, he is a professor of English at UC Berkeley and directs the Poetry Program of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. www.barclayagency.com/hass.html
	SHARON OLDS’s most recent book, One Secret Thing, was published by Knopf in 2008. Her previous collection, a selected poems, Strike Sparks, appeared in 2004. Her other books of poetry include The Unswept Room; Blood, Tin, Straw; The Dead and the Living; The Wellspring; Satan Says; The Father; and The Gold Cell. She teaches in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University, and helped found two ongoing outreach writing workshops: one 25 years ago at the Sigismund Goldwater Memorial Hospital, a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged; and one two years ago, for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. From 1998- 2000 she was New York State Poet Laureate, and she is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Knopf will publish her new book Stag's Leap in September. www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sharon-olds
	CLAUDIA RANKINE is a poet and playwright. She has published several collections of poetry, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (Graywolf), Plot (Grove Press), and Nothing in Nature is Private (CSU Poetry Series), which won the Cleveland State Poetry Prize. With Juliana Spahr, Rankine co-edited American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language; and with Lisa Sewell, American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics. Her poems have been included in the anthologies Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present Best American Poetry, and The Garden Thrives: Twentieth Century African-American Poetry. Her play Detour/ South Bronx premiered in 2009 at New York’s Foundry Theater. Rankine has been awarded fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lannan Foundation. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, she earned a BA at Williams College and an MFA at Columbia University.
	C.D. WRIGHT is the author of more than a dozen books, most recently, One With Others: a little book of her days, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Leonore Marshall Prize. Her book Rising, Falling, Hovering won the 2009 International Griffin Poetry Prize. With photographer Deborah Luster she published One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana which won the Lange-Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. On a fellowship for writers from the Wallace Foundation she curated a “Walk-in Book of Arkansas,” a multi-media exhibition that toured throughout her native state. In 2004 she was named a MacArthur Fellow. In 2005 she was given the Robert Creeley Award. Wright is from the Arkansas Ozarks. She lives in Rhode Island and is on the faculty at Brown University. She is married to poet Forrest Gander and they have a son, Brecht.

The Community of Writers rents houses and condominiums in the valley for participants to live in during the week of the conference. If, when you are accepted, you would like us to arrange your accommodations, you can choose between Single( $750*), Twin ($400*) and Bargain Bunk ($250*) rooms within these units. Some of the houses are within walking distance; some require a short drive, so please indicate whether you will have a car with you in the valley. Every unit will have a kitchen and will be supplied with linens. Vist our FAQ page for more information.

Dinners are provided six nights. You may prepare your breakfasts and lunches in your house, or visit one of the cafes in the valley. There is a small market within walking distance and supermarkets in the nearby towns of Truckee and Tahoe City.

*Price is for 7 nights and may change slightly without notice.

Limited financial aid is available. Requests for financial aid must be made in your application. Please indicate the amount of financial aid you would need to get, in order to attend. Financial aid decisions are made after admission decisions. If an applicant is accepted, but we don’t have enough aid for him or her, we will still issue an invitation in the hopes that other means of support may be able to be found by the applicant to attend. Likewise, if an applicant has indicated that she needs a certain amount of aid, but we can’t provide the full amount, we will grant out what we can.

The Lucille Clifton Scholarship:
If you would like to be considered for the Lucille Clifton Scholarship (Tuition + Twin Housing), please indicate this on your
cover sheet. Please refer to the scholarship requirements.

The Foundation for Art and Healing Scholarship:
Foundation for Art and Healing has donated a scholarship for attendance at the Community of Writers Poetry Program. The scholarship is for a student or practitioner of the 'healing arts' (including in medicine, nursing, counseling, social work, body-work, nutrition, etc.) for whom this scholarship would allow continued pursuit of poetry in relation to her or his interest in poetry as it relates to 'healing.' Please refer to the scholarship requirements.

Deadline for receipt of submission/application: April 2, 2012
Application Fee (Due with submission): $25
Notification Date: May 1
Tuition: $840 - A deposit of will be due upon acceptance.
Tuition & Housing Balance: Due on arrival in Squaw Valley.

POETRY APPLICATION GUIDELINES:

Past Poetry participants: If you wish to attend this year, contact us for information about the lottery procedure: (530) 470-8440 or brett @ squawvalleywriters.org. Put "Lottery" in the subject line.

• Send two complete copies of submission: 4 or 5 pages of recent poems, typed, 12 pt., stapled.
• Please put your name in the upper right hand corner of each page.
• Include two copies of a cover sheet with home address, day and evening telephone numbers, and email address.
• Requests for financial aid should be made on the cover sheet. Please indicate whether attendance is possible without it.
• Requests for consideration for Work-Waivers should be made on the cover sheet. (Up to $150 may be taken off housing costs for light work done during the conference.)
• Enclose $25 reading fee, payable to: Community of Writers-Poetry.
• No manuscripts can be returned; they will be recycled instead.
• Deadline for receipt of application/submission: April 2, 2012
• Questions? Please refer to our Frequently Asked Questions page or contact Brett Hall Jones.

Send submissions to:

Robert Hass c/o Brett Hall Jones
S.V. Community of Writers - Poetry
16191 Indian Flat Rd.
Nevada City, CA 95959

Notification of acceptance by May 1, 2012.

QUESTIONS? Please go to our Frequently Asked Questions page.

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Slideshow Images by Tracy Hall