Bobby Byrd, Lee Merrill Byrd
The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 8pm
Bobby Byrd; Lee Merrill Byrd
Poet, essayist and publisher Bobby Byrd grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. He and his family made El Paso their home in 1978. The author of numerous books of poetry, his latest volume White Panties, Dead Friends and Other Bits and Pieces of Love received the 2008 Southwest Book Award. He is also co-editor of two award-winning non-fiction border anthologies—The Late Great Mexican Border: Dispatches from a Disappearing Line; and Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots, & Graffiti from La Frontera. Byrd is the recipient of a National Endowment of Arts Fellowship, the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship by the University of New Mexico, an International Residency Fellowship from the NEA Instituto de Belles Artes de México and a 2005 Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. With his wife Lee, he is the co-publisher of Cinco Puntos Press. Novelist and publisher Lee Merrill Byrd was born and raised in New Jersey, but has lived for the last 30 years in El Paso. Lee has published a collection of short stories, My Sister Disappears (SMU Press), two children’s books, The Treasure on Gold Street and Lover Boy (Cinco Puntos) and a novel Riley’s Fire (Algonquin). People Magazine named Riley’s Fire one of the Top Ten Best Books of 2006. In 1997, Lee Byrd was the recipient of the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship. In 2005, she and her husband received Cultural Freedom Fellowships from the Lannan Foundation. In 1985, with her husband, poet Bobby Byrd, she founded Cinco Puntos Press, a publishing company recognized for bringing the multicultural literatures of the American Southwest, the U.S./Mexico border region and Mexico to a national audience. Eileen Myles and Elinor Nauen will also “realize” poems from The Resurrection of Bert Ringold (a Cinco Puntos title) by the late Harvey Goldner: “A poet neglectorino in the classic sense rising up out of the fecund Seattle underground wisely irritated with the stupid Republicanized world but lucky enough to remember the 1950 Memphis dreams that Little Richard, Gandhi and Elvis promised us all.” (lampbane)… (more)
Poet, essayist and publisher Bobby Byrd grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. He and his family made El Paso their home in 1978. The author of numerous books of poetry, his latest volume White Panties, Dead Friends and Other Bits and Pieces of Love received the 2008 Southwest Book Award. He is also co-editor of two award-winning non-fiction border anthologies—The Late Great Mexican Border: Dispatches from a Disappearing Line; and Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots, & Graffiti from La Frontera. Byrd is the recipient of a National Endowment of Arts Fellowship, the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship by the University of New Mexico, an International Residency Fellowship from the NEA Instituto de Belles Artes de México and a 2005 Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. With his wife Lee, he is the co-publisher of Cinco Puntos Press. Novelist and publisher Lee Merrill Byrd was born and raised in New Jersey, but has lived for the last 30 years in El Paso. Lee has published a collection of short stories, My Sister Disappears (SMU Press), two children’s books, The Treasure on Gold Street and Lover Boy (Cinco Puntos) and a novel Riley’s Fire (Algonquin). People Magazine named Riley’s Fire one of the Top Ten Best Books of 2006. In 1997, Lee Byrd was the recipient of the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship. In 2005, she and her husband received Cultural Freedom Fellowships from the Lannan Foundation. In 1985, with her husband, poet Bobby Byrd, she founded Cinco Puntos Press, a publishing company recognized for bringing the multicultural literatures of the American Southwest, the U.S./Mexico border region and Mexico to a national audience. Eileen Myles and Elinor Nauen will also “realize” poems from The Resurrection of Bert Ringold (a Cinco Puntos title) by the late Harvey Goldner: “A poet neglectorino in the classic sense rising up out of the fecund Seattle underground wisely irritated with the stupid Republicanized world but lucky enough to remember the 1950 Memphis dreams that Little Richard, Gandhi and Elvis promised us all.” (lampbane)… (more)
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