2015 Convention
Mountain Vistas. Desert Landscapes. These are just a couple of the scenic possibilities awaiting you at the 2015 Convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We will be exploring the theme "Borderlands and Enchantments," and the convention will focus on and celebrate the Southwest region, in particular New Mexico. We encourage you to consider how this theme, in whole or in part, can be explored. Borders might also be called margins. Borders can be physical or cultural, real or imagined. New Mexico is called the land of enchantment—enchantment may be a personal feeling or it might suggest the supernatural or magical. Whatever direction you find yourself heading, there are an abundance of avenues to explore in both critical and creative work. In our efforts to celebrate the Southwest, we will be drawing on speakers who are native to the area and our Common Reader selection works beautifully. We have chosen From Sand Creek, by Simon Ortiz. In this moving collection of poetry he writes:
This America
has been a burden
of steel and mad
death,
but, look now
there are flowers
and new grass
and a spring wind
rising
from Sand Creek.
Exploring what it means to be a person on the border, Ortiz's volume of poetry uses the 1864 massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho women and children at Sand Creek by the U.S. Army as the focal point for poems that pay homage to these innocent victims and also explores what it has meant to be on the margins. Oritz writes that "I've been a writer and poet for over thirty-five years. One of the major voices in Indigenous American literature, I was among the first to be published as a contemporary Indigenous American writer of poetry and fiction beginning in the 1960s. My writing continues to address topics and issues of major concern regarding Indigenous American lands, communities, and cultures, including Indigenous decolonization and liberation. I've been involved with Indigenous educational endeavors . . . and in urban Indigenous communities. Along with my profession and career as a writer, poet, and storyteller, I've worked as a teacher and community-cultural worker, and I've been a tribal leader on two occasions as an Interpreter-Translator (1987-88) and First Lieutenant Governor (1988-89). Presently, I am the incoming Managing Editor of RED INK: International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Humanities."
Date and Location
March 18 - 22, 2015
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
Albuquerque, NM
Theme: Borderlands and Enchantments
Common Reader: From Sand Creek, by Simon Ortiz
www.englishconvention.org