Cedric Tillman's Blog - Posts Tagged "black"

A review of Lilies, by poet and teacher Joseph Ross. I am thankful to Joseph for his kindness in picking up the book and taking the time.

"Cedric Tillman’s poetry collection Lilies in the Valley has vision and faith. It looks and believes. These poems look deeply into human concerns with vivid details and rich, sometimes amusing descriptions. What they always do, for me, is draw me to look deeply at my own life. Tillman explores our various identities as family members, citizens, and people of varying levels of faith. The beauty of the poems is so strong it invites us all to the same exploration. For this, we can be grateful to Cedric Tillman and to Willow Books for getting these fine poems into our hands. I’ve been enjoying this collection for a few months now and I know I will return to it again and again..."

http://josephross.net/?p=1909

Please check out some of Joseph's work here.

http://mainstreetrag.com/bookstore/pr...

Many thanks to Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh for stocking LILIES. Check them out if you're in the area.

http://www.quailridgebooks.com
http://www.quailridgebooks.com/book/9...

Hey all:

I'm very excited to say LILIES is available for Amazon Kindle, if y'all do that sort of thing. It's $7.99. The print version is there too, of course. Many thanks to Willow Books for all the work on this.

http://www.amazon.com/Lilies-Valley-C...

Me and the homie Len Lawson will be reading together down in SC. Really looking forward to it-we've talked about reading together a long time and I'm thankful to Joe's Place for having us. Len's a good dude to do this reading with-I've enjoyed talking with him about the difficulties of being Christian poets in what I consider to be our generally religion-averse circles, and we'll get to some pieces we might not get to in other settings.

Len Lawson teaches writing at Central Carolina Technical College. He has received a creative writing fellowship from Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee with poems appearing or forthcoming in Winter Tangerine Review, pluck!, Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Petigru Review, and many other anthologies and journals. Len is Poet-in-Residence for Sumter County (SC) Cultural Commission and co-founder of the Poets Respond to Race initiative. The Very Least of Me explores themes of purpose and identity set in the landscape of a wilderness. He includes three short stories in the collection which are sure to entertain with humor, nostalgia, and reflection.

http://www.joesplacellc.com/event/poe...

So honored to be invited by my Willow Books pressmate Rachelle Escamilla (IMAGINARY ANIMAL, 2014) to chat about race and poetry recently on KKUP's venerable poetry show, Out of Our Minds.

Listen here:
https://soundcloud.com/rachelle-escam...

Rachelle's book:
https://willowlit.net/2015/03/31/imag...

I forgot to mention this here in the craziness of my move to the DC metro area that was going on at the time-but I had a great time meeting and reading with Janet Joyner and Sara Claytor (who I met at an earlier reading back in '16.) Thanks so much to Grace Ocasio (http://www.blazevox.org/index.php/Sho...) for making the introduction and to Quail Ridge for having me.
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http://www.quailridgebooks.com/event/...

Sara Claytor, Cedric Tillman & Janet Joyner - An Afternoon of NC Poets

Our Sundry Poets program presents a trio of talented NC poets on Sunday, Dec. 4, at 2 pm. Carrboro's Sara Claytor, author of Memory Bones, shares from her latest, Waiting on Unknown Roads.

Cedric Tillman shares Lilies in the Valley. “Cedric Tillman’s poems are straightforward and full of rich details. These poems unfold with rhythm and resonate with remembering; they have much emotional appeal, depicting pop culture, family life, blues, violence, love, religion and history. Lilies In The Valley is a serious and daring book.”–Lenard D. Moore, author of Forever Home.

Winston-Salem's Janet Joyner presents Waterborne, winner of the 2015 Holland Prize. "Janet Joyner, in these powerful, musically sensuous poems, reaches into our innermost hearts; and as a result we are, I think, both deeper and more honest than we were before." - Anthony Abbott (The Angel Dialogues).

Our moderator is Jo Taylor.

Event date:
Sunday, December 4, 2016 - 2:00pm
Event address:
North Hills
4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road
Raleigh, NC 27609

I want to say thanks to these presses for acknowledging my work this year. I was named a semifinalist for the Pleiades & Akron Prizes earlier this year, and found out today that I was named a finalist for the Press 53 Poetry prize.

I am so happy to see this manuscript get some love. I remember after finishing my MFA how I thought my thesis was so ready to go - thank God LILIES didn't see the light of day for 9 years. I sent it everywhere and got a couple of nice letters, but didn't place anywhere. This is the 6th semi/finalist placing for IN MY FEELINGS in the last 2 years (finalist for Akron last yr!), and it's cool to see the work pay off- but even more than that, it's cool feeling as if maturity and knowing what I want to put out in the world has improved my work in the eyes of unbiased observers.

I'm very happy to see a press from home (Winston stand up!) recognize this work. Hoping to come back to this space soon with news of some press taking a chance on this thing...

Cedric

I'm super excited and thankful to have a new poem entitled "Supremacy, or The Black Lifestyle" up at Pleaides. The poem was actually created from the writing/feelings/ideas that came from out of the tragic shooting of nine Bible study attendees at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. in Charleston in 2015, as well as a quote from an article from the last election that came from an article written on a Ben Carson visit to NC. The first poem that came out of it all was "The Blood," which was published by Public Pool. The second is "Supremacy," here:

http://www.pleiadesmag.com/cedrictill...

Thanks for reading!

I'm back from hiatus. I'll be doing my first non-open mic reading in a bit over a year next week back home in NC over in Asheville at The Block off biltmore (their capitalization, not mine :) Show starts at 7:30-I'll do about 30 mins, try to slip in some stuff from my latest ms., which will be followed by an open mic. Come through!

https://www.facebook.com/events/17861...

Honored to have been named a finalist. Congrats to all-congrats to Ashley (and Darrel Alejandro Holnes!) I have some friends who are big fans of both, and I've seen Ashley's name everywhere over the last couple years.

We are pleased to announce dark // thing by Ashley M. Jones was selected by Marcus Wicker and will be published next year. Marcus Wicker praised this book, saying “dark // thing explores the operating costs incurred when blackness—black hair, black bottom, black diction and excellence—are perceived, but not uniquely seen. Ashley M. Jones has penned towns like Birmingham, Alabama and Flint, Michigan; penned America through the lens of Harriet Tubman, Dwayne Wayne, and the Emancipation Proclamation in a pitch tuned for everyone, whether you’re jonseing for sonnets, sestinas, or mathematical proofs. It is imperative that you read these poems, teach these poems, breathe deep this gift of a book.”

We also would like to commend the other finalists and semi-finalists, whose manuscripts in our opinion were all outstanding and publishable.

Finalists: Kimberly Andrews, Scott Beal, Torrin A. Greathouse, Judy Halebsky, Rebecca Hazelton, Kate Partridge, Jennifer Perrine, Cedric Tillman, Michael Torres

Semi-finalists: Dilruba Ahmed, Christian Bancroft, Ralph Burns, Robert Evory, C. R. Grimmer Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Peter Kline, Becka Mara McKay, Andrea Martin, Kyle McCord, Susannah Nevison, Osel Jessica Plante, Christa Romanosky, Molly Spencer, Kathleen Winter, Felicia Zamora

http://pleiadespress.org/congratulati...