Inside the new issue of basalt

Inside the new basalt: a journal of fine and literary arts

Contact: David Axelrod | basalt Editor
daxelrod@eou.edu

November 25, 2015

LA GRANDE, Ore. (EOU) – The new issue of Eastern Oregon University’s award-winning publication, basalt: a journal of fine and literary arts, has just been released and features student writing, translated works of Polish poetry and the portfolio of a Montana artist.

Graduate student Asha Dore, who will complete her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from EOU in June, is a featured writer.

Dore’s lyric essay, “Figure Studies,” examines her daughter’s congenital condition, Arthrogryposis or “curved joints,” through the lenses of August Rodin’s sculpting of the human form and the clinical language of teams of medical practitioners who have treated her daughter. The results are a profoundly humane meditation on art and life, which has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in nonfiction.

The new issue also includes five poems by Polish poet Anna Swir.

“We are particularly pleased to publish this selection,” said David Axelrod, basalt editor and professor of English at EOU. “Swir is well-known to literary audiences in the U.S., as her work was first introduced to readers here by Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz’s translation of her collection ‘Talking to My Body.'”

“Swir fought in the Resistance against the Nazis and participated in the Warsaw Uprising. Her poems in this issue, translated by Piotr Florczyk, describe vivid moments from that historic event,” Axelrod added.

Students and community members will have an opportunity to meet Florczyk when he visits EOU in April 2016 to give the annual Carl and Sandra Ellston Ars Poetica Lecture.

“Striking, too, is the art portfolio in this issue by Montana artist Sandra Dal Poggetto, whose work reflects her lifelong experience as a hunter,” said Jodi Varon, basalt’s editor-in-chief and professor of English and writing at EOU. “This body of work is not only beautiful and interesting, it demonstrates once again how the humanities draw their subjects from disparate fields of interest to create a unified field of humane intelligence.”

Dal Poggetto’s artwork is accompanied by her essay, “Wildtime,” in which she discusses how hunting has influenced her artistic practice.

Rebranded as “basalt” in 2005 and featuring a new design, the magazine previously known as Calapooya has been published annually at EOU under the editorship of  Varon and Axelrod since 1995.

During this time, the magazine has included many of America’s modern and contemporary artists: Morris Graves, Enrique Chagoya, James Lavadour, Marie Watt and Tim Ely. In addition, it has featured translations of many writers from around the world, including Nobel Laureate Harry Martinson, as well as many award-winning contemporary American writers, among them Madeline DeFrees, Peter Everwine, Dorianne Laux, Lance Olsen, Gary Young, Jennifer Boyden, Ed Skoog and many others.

Copies of the new issue, as well as back issues, will be available soon online at eou.edu/basalt or may be purchased at Looking Glass Books in La Grande. For more information call 541-962-3633 or e-mail basalt@eou.edu.