Willa Schneberg was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her second collection In The Margins Of The World, Plain View Press, was awarded the 2002 Oregon Book Award for Poetry. She has won two Oregon Literary Arts Fellowships in poetry, and received a grant in poetry from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her poetry has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Tikkun, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southern Poetry Review, among others. Click here for a full bio.

2009 READINGS & EVENTS
July 22
Willa will read with Floyd Skloot in Verse in Person. At 7 PM, NW Branch of the Multnomah County Library, 23rd & NW Thurman, Portland.

July 2
Opening at the 114 Gallery, 1100 NW Glisan St, Portland this July. Stayed tuned for more! Art samples in the News column.

June 10
Willa will be the featured reader at the Milwaukie Poetry Series, Wednesday, June 10, 7PM, Ledding Library Pond House, 2215 SE Harrison, Milwaukie, OR.

May 13
Willa will be one of the contributors reading at the 7PM Book launch for Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry, Barnes & Noble, Lloyd Center, Portland.

May 7
Willa will join Tim Applegate, Barbara Drake, Michael McDowell, Paulann Petersen and Bill Siverly for a Spring Windfall Reading, Thurs. 7PM, Looking Glass Books, 7983 SE 13th Avenue in Sellwood, Portland.

April 26
Willa will read at the Silverton Poetry Festival Feast of Poets, Silver Falls Vineyards, 2 to 4:30PM. The event includes a bountiful buffet, and the favored libation of poets. Silver Falls Winery is just south of Silverton, 4972 Cascade Hwy SE. For more information, check out www.silvertonpoetry.org.


April 18
Willa will be the featured reader at the Manzanita Writer's Series, Saturday, April 18, 7 p.m., Hoffman Center Annex on 594 Laneda Avenue, across from the library, in Manzanita. A $5 donation is suggested.

March 15
Willa led a workshop: Writing Poetry of the Jewish Experience. Location: Oregon Jewish Museum, 310 NW Davis Street, (Chinatown), Portland, OR, 1PM - 4PM. Maximum of twelve participants. Suggested Contribution: $75. Please see the full description under "NEWS" on the right.

February 12
Willa made a presentation entitled Political Poets of Portland with Fran Payne Adler, Cindy Williams Gutierrez, Gerardo Calderon at the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference, Chicago.

January 3
Willa hosted an event to Celebrate the life of William Stafford. Featured readers: Frances Payne Adler, Christine Delea, Robert McFarlane, John Morrison, Emma Oliver, and FWS Board Members Dennis and Helen Schmidling. Looking Glass Book Store, 7983 SE 13th Ave., Portland 97202 (new Sellwood location), 3-5 PM. For more info about all Stafford celebrations go to www.williamstafford.org.


NEWS
  • July 2 - 31
    Opening at the 114 Gallery, 1100 NW Glisan St, Portland, an exhibition of
    Ceramic Sculpture: Objects of the Sacred & Profane.

    First Thursday Reception, 6-9PM.
    Also on exhibit: Works of New Members.
    Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, Noon - 6PM.
    Contact: gallery114 at live.com

    Artist's Statement:

    Willa will be exhibiting ceramic sculpture in the Pozzi Room of 114 Gallery, 1100 NW Glisan in the Pearl District. Objects of the Sacred & Profane will be on view from July 2 – July 31. The opening will be First Thursday 6PM – 9PM. She'll be exhibiting with new memebrs: Margaret E. Graham, Grace Sanchez, Jon Gotshall and Joan McGuire.

    Her work is inspired by living and working in Asia, particularly in Cambodia, Korea, Japan and Burma. In Cambodia she was employed by the United Nations from 1992 – 1993, during the first "free and fair elections" since the time of the French colonial period.

    The sculptures in this exhibit are reflections of the sacred-- Buddhist ritual, architecture of worship; and the profane-- street venders of Cambodia, especially the women who make and sell fruit smoothies throughout the country once ravished by the
    Khmer Rouge.

    The impetus for these sculptures include: the whisk used in the Japanese tea ceremony to make chartreuse powdered tea into a frothy foam; the vajra or dorje of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, considered a symbol of the indestructible nature of truth; the stupa or tope, a dome-like mound containing a shrine; and cases of fruits artfully displayed by street vendors.

    The sculpture is intimate, hand-built, low-fired in white and terra- cotta clay, glazed, lustered, china-painted and painted.

    Gallery Hours: Weds. – Sat., Noon – 6PM. On the web: www.114gallery.org.

    Art samples below (click to expand):





  • "Hill of Crosses" by Edis Jurcys
    Willa is the English language editor for Hill of Crosses, Gardens of Life, images of Lithuanian-American photographer Edis Jurcys (cover below), who reveals through his intimate lens, the preservation of the sacred and the constantly renewing spirituality of one of the most unique places in Lithuania – the Hill of Crosses.

Latest Release
Storytelling in Cambodia
Poems by Willa Schneberg

Introduction by U. Sam Oeur and Ken McCullough

Click here for ordering information.!

This moving and image-rich cycle of linked poems journeys from Cambodia’s mythic times to the killing fields to the U.N. presence during the first free elections. It bears witness to the plight of the Cambodian people and to all who have endured holocausts. A beautiful and heart-wrenching collection.

“Willa Schneberg takes the reader on an extraordinary journey—from the Ramayana and Angkor Wat to the terrors of Pol Pot—encountering along the way Buddhist pacifism and the divine warrior, André Malraux and Tricky Dick and Kent State, among a host of characters. Her Cambodia is a world and she’s gotten deep within its skin. This is rich rewarding poetry, a compassionate, visionary response to a very real world.” Sam Hamill

“In Storytelling in Cambodia Willa Schneberg writes a searing account of one of the darkest moments in modern history. Schneberg’s haunting verse testimony, her portraits of those who dragged a once peaceful country into the nightmare of genocide, her passionate homage to an ancient civilization now irrevocably lost move the reader even as they horrify.” Carolyn Forché



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