Grisham Writer in Residence Ends Year With Second Book of poetry

   Poet and artist Claude Wilkinson, the John and Renée Grisham Southern Writer in Residence at the University, ends his one-year tenure with joy; that is, Joy in the Mourning, a forthcoming book of poems he hopes to have published soon.

   When he wasn’t helping aspiring bards on the Oxford campus hone their craft during the writing courses he taught, Wilkinson spent much of his time fine-tuning his latest book, the second volume of poetry he will have published. His first, Reading the Earth (Michigan State University Press, 1998), a collection of 44 poems, received national acclaim.

   “It has been our great pleasure to host Claude Wilkinson this year,” said Joseph Urgo, chair of the University’s Department of English. “His quiet intensity and wide-ranging talents have made a mark on the department, the University, and the town of Oxford. We wish him well. We know we’ll be hearing about him in the years to come.”

   As Wilkinson leaves the campus literary post following his brief tenure, which he described as “very fruitful,” he also concludes Joy in the Mourning, which, for him, brings closure.

   “I think I began it when I was born,” said Wilkinson, the first poet to be named a Grisham Writer in Residence, a program established in 1993 with funds from best-selling author John Grisham and his wife, Renée.  “It was a part of my life.”

   The pun in Joy in the Mourning is deliberate and refers to the “ways of finding joy in that mourning and alludes to the Biblical passage ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’   (Psalm 30:5),” Wilkinson said. “The poems are based on the ideas of finding poems in the many ways of holding onto joy until the morning.”

   Wilkinson, who was born in Memphis and raised on a farm in Nesbit, Mississippi, plans to remain in Oxford into the summer. After that, he will return to his Nesbit home, talking to publishers and making final revisions to his forthcoming book. In addition to writing articles and essays and exploring medieval poetry, as well as works by Flannery O’Connor, he hinted that he may teach elsewhere, but his main priority is to get his second book of poetry published, he said.

   Last October, Wilkinson won the 2000 Whiting Writers’ Award, which annually honors 10 promising writers in the United States. Over the years, his poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Atlanta Review and the Southern Review.

   Wilkinson also is an avid artist who is noted for capturing the essence of nature in his drawings and paintings, as well as in his poetry and essays. His artwork was shown at the University Museums this spring during the Oxford Conference for the Book and now is being exhibited in the invitational show Poets Jazz Paint at the Porter Troupe Gallery in San Diego, California.

   Wilkinson, a graduate of both University of Mississippi and the University of Memphis, also has won numerous awards for his artwork, which is included in numerous private collections.

   Tom Franklin, an Alabama novelist and the author of Poachers: Stories (William Morrow and Company, 1999) has been named the Grisham Writer in Residence at University for the 2001-02 academic year.

Deidra Jackson