Poet Millicent Borges-Accardi Nominated for 2022 PEN Award
Look for the latest collection, “Through a Grainy Landscape,” by one of Topanga’s own, acclaim
Congratulations to Topanga poet Millicent Borges-Accardi, whose body of works has earned her a nomination for a 2022 PEN award.
Her latest poetry collection, “Through a Grainy Landscape,” that comes out at the end of this year, is inspired by lines from contemporary Portuguese writings, with blurbs by Katherine Vaz and Frank Gaspar. It is published by New Meridian Arts (the publisher of a recent translation re-issue of Nuno Judice’s book, “The Religious Mantle.”)
“In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in writers with heritage in Lusophone countries, expanding, perhaps, into a new movement for an overlooked literary world, especially with Richard Zenith’s seminal biography of Pessoa,” says Borges-Accardi.
Among her awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, Canto Mundo, Creative Capacity, the California Arts Council, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (COVID grant), the Corporation of Yaddo, Fundação Luso-Americana (Portugal), and the Barbara Deming Foundation, “Money for Women.”
She lives in the hippie-arts community of Topanga, CA, where she curates Kale Soup for the Soul and Loose Lips poetry readings.
Praise for “Through a Grainy Landscape”
“Through a Grainy Landscape” is an important book for this strange historical moment and beyond. I’m stunned by the beauty of its solemnity.
—Gail Wronsky, Topanga, CA
Author of “Under the Capsized Boat We Fly: New & Selected Poems”
Millicent Borges-Accardi adds luster to her acclaim as a leading poet of the Portuguese-American experience with a new collection of breathtaking scope. She inhabits the new artistic frontier in exploring what heritage means to those descended from immigrants... Our times call for a resetting of sensibilities: while housebound, we can “look for kindness.” If grief is “…shrapnel under the skin working a way out,” and women are expected to be “zany volcanoes” before they explode into invisibility, it could be that whole new ways of being are set to emerge.
—Katherine Vaz
Author of “Saudade, Mariana, Fado & Other Stories;”
“Our Lady of the Artichokes”
This collection of poems is as lush and volcanic as the Azorean landscape, grounded in earthiness, rich with the yearning for the sea, and seasoned with saudade.
—paulA neves
A vital book for those of us whose heritage is Portuguese, but it’s also an important book for American readers of every background and tradition. It stands as an aesthetic bridge between cultures.
—Frank X. Gaspar
Author of The Poems o f Renata Ferreira, The Holyoke, and Leaving Pico:A Novel
For more information: millb@aol.com; Salmon Poetry Collection (Only More So @ Amazon); @TopangaHippie on Twitter; Água mole em pedra dura tanto dá até que fura Introduction.
