Everything And Nothing

Theory of Memory

Theory of Memory

by Louise Gluck

Long, long ago, before I was a tormented artist, afflicted
with longing
yet incapable of forming durable attachments, long before this, I
was a glorious
ruler uniting all of a divided country—so I was told by the
fortune-teller
who examined my palm. Great things, she said, are ahead of
you, or perhaps
behind you; it is difficult to be sure. And yet, she added,
what is the difference?
Right now you are a child holding hands with a fortune-
teller. All the
rest is hypothesis and dream.

"Theory of Memory" by Louise Glück, from Faithful and Virtuous Night. © Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. 

[ via Writer's Almanac ]

Hattiesburg American photojournalists hosting photo walks

Starting Saturday, the Hattiesburg American photographers will be hosting a photo walk once a month at various locations around Hattiesburg and the Pine Belt. You'll be able to learn from the experts and shoot some great shots along the way. (No fancy camera needed. Just bring your smartphone even!)

They will also be posting participants' photos in the paper and on social media accounts.

The first photo walk, focusing on fall colors, will take place on the Southern Miss campus at 3:35 p.m. with Eli Baylis. Eli is a Hattiesburg native and graduate of Oak Grove High and Southern Miss.

The next photo walk will be Dec. 13 and will be held downtown with photographer Eric Shelton. Eric is a Columbia native, who also graduated from Southern Miss. Details to come.

And after you've been taken pictures for two months, be sure and enter you best work in the Hattiesburg Arts Council photo contest for amateur photographers.

Waveland rebuilding City Hall mosaic that Katrina destroyed

Courtesy of a Mississippi Arts Commission grant, the City of Waveland is creating a new mosaic on the wall in front of the City Hall complex on Coleman Avenue. The original mosaic (above), created in 1997 with the help of many of the area residents, was destroyed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Elizabeth Veglia, the project director of the original mosaic, hosted workshops in September and October leading the community in the creation of the new one. The design takes its inspiration from the Waveland logo and the undulating waves within it. Included in the design will be the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, buildings from the past and new ones that have replaced them, and the local sea and land images that are iconic to our region.  

Mississippi Poet Laureate at USM

Mississippi Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will appear in Hattiesburg on Thursday, Nov. 6,  for a performance with the University of Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra.

Trethewey, the former U.S. poet laureate, will participate in a concert entitled "Made in America" at 7:30 p.m. in Bennett Auditorium on the USM campus.

Trethewey will narrate the orchestral version of her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Native Guard. The music was composed by USM alumnus Joseph Britain.

The book contains elegies to her mother, who died while Trethewey was in college, and a sonnet sequence in the voice of a black soldier fighting in the Civil War.