Election Results and the Year in Review

It is the middle of the summer, but there is still news here at the RJA. Ron Olowin has won a hotly contested race for President and will serve as President-Elect until the end of my term, on Dec. 31, 2011. His term begins on Jan. 1, 2012 and runs until Dec. 31, 2014. I want to thank Geneva Gano, who came in a very close second in the race for President. Malinda Miller won the race for Advisory Council and will serve until Dec. 31, 2013. RJA is fortunate to have such gifted and committed people to help guide the organization into the future.

Our next year in RJA should prove exciting. Thanks to tremendous work by editor James Karman, the second volume of the Collected Letters is due and the third is under preparation. Jeffers Studies goes from strength to strength under the capable leadership of George Hart. Thanks to the stewardship of Rob Kafka, our finances are as strong as they have ever been and many thanks are due Malinda Miller, who built and continues to develop this website, which attracts more and more web traffic. Under the steady hand of Executive Director Erika Koss our membership is slowly growing, and the Long Beach conference was a great success, with many fine presentations. Our new President will soon take up the question of the date of the next conference, and I will proceed with a review of the Bylaws per the motion passed at our last meeting.

All in all, we’ve had an excellent year and the next looks promising. Thanks to all for your support of RJA.

David J. Rothman

RJA Member Appointed Poet Laureate of Tacoma

photo courtesy of Josie Emmons Turner

The Tacoma Arts Commission recently announced the selection of RJA member Josie Emmons Turner as the 2011-2013 Poet Laureate for the City of Tacoma. Over the next two years, Emmons Turner will participate actively in the local community by providing poetry related workshops, reading at public events, and participating in Art at Work: Tacoma Arts Month each November.

Emmons Turner’s poetry has been published in 20/20 Tacoma in Images and Verse, 2010 Floating Bridge Review Number 3, In Tahoma’s Shadow, California Quarterly, and Backstreet Review. She received her M.F.A. through the Rainier Writers Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and her B.A. from Seattle University. She has been a creative writing educator for three years, currently with Clover Park High School.

In an interview with The Weekly Volcano, Josie mentions Jeffers as one of the poets she frequently returns to. She is also featured in the Tacoma Weekly and can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Josie-Emmons-Turner/162124677179856.

RJA President Reviews Volume One of Collected Letters in The Sewanee Review

The current issue of The Sewanee Review contains a review written by RJA President David J. Rothman on The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, with Selected Letters of Una Jeffers, vol. I, 1890–1930, James Karman, ed. In “Arts and Letters: Shine, Perishing Republic of Letters,” Rothman notes that “These letters are astonishing, revealing as powerfully as any documents of the time, the gulf that opened between not only the poetries but also the sensibilities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in America.” Read the review>>