Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda is a multi-artist in every possible genre: painter, sculptor, poet, and teacher. She has won numerous awards, grants, and nominations for her work in the arts and teaching, some of which include: five grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, six Pushcart Prize nominations; multiple awards in Pen Women competitions; the Fairfax County Public Schools’ Hodgson Award in English; a National Scholastic Teacher Portfolio Award; and an Outstanding Scholarship and Service award from George Mason University.
Kreiter-Foronda credits her passion and success in the arts to her mother, Lucile Kreiter, and father, Victor Kreiter Sr., both educators: her mother was a school teacher, and her father was her high school principal. Kreiter-Foronda was born in Central Virginia in 1946 and was reared in the foothills of Southwest Virginia, with her sister Betsy and brother Victor Kreiter, Jr.
“I felt solace living in a rural setting where children scaled trees and played in sandboxes, their imaginations ignited by make-believe. The old timey cars I pushed through the sand weren’t real, but I pretended they existed and derived pleasure from their fanciful journeys to faraway places.”
She always knew she wanted to be a teacher and never veered from this path.
“At an early age, I used to set up cardboard boxes in our garage and pretend that these were students’ desks. I taught make-believe students how to write, draw, create stick figures, as well as how to add and to subtract.”
The family moved to the Richmond area, where their mother took her children on field trips during the weekends, usually museums, one of which was the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which was Kreiter-Foronda’s favorite place to go. It was here that she learned about Egyptian mummies, tombs, and pyramids.
Her mother also taught her the art of listening – and read poems to her every night, which gave her the experience of musicality of verse. By the time she was four years old she was writing her own rhyming poems. During the summers her mother would have her participate in artistic activities, including drawing and finger-painting classes, which usually entailed making greeting cards for family and friends. Her mother was also her fifth and sixth grade teacher.
“She taught me about a variety of sites throughout the world suitable for inspiring artistic renderings. I still have a drawing of the Taj Mahal, which I created in her class for a world history report.”
One of the projects she engaged in at a craft class was creating puppets using favorite cartoon characters.
“In fact, a handmade puppet of Donald Duck sits in the entrance to my art studio as an indelible reminder of my early dream to become an artist.”
Kreiter-Foronda also has precious memories of visiting her maternal grandmother, who lived in a farmhouse with the traditional parlor that housed a majestic grand piano.
“After listening to my mother play classical pieces on the same piano, I begged her to let me take lessons one day. Despite a tight budget, my parents found the funds to turn my dream into reality.”
Finally, as a ninth grader she was scheduled to give a solo performance in the Richmond area, but the performance never occurred because it was discovered that her piano teacher had disappeared, and to this day he has never been found. Her teacher’s disappearance took a toll on Kreiter-Foronda, and she gave up her dream of being a concert pianist.
“If I were to relive that moment, I would have forged ahead and not let this setback alter my direction. However, there’s something good that emerges from our disappointments.”
And the good was that she transferred her passions for the piano to journalism. She landed a job working as a Youth Page correspondent for the now-defunct Richmond News-Leader.
That same year, at the age of 16, she almost died due to an illness. Once again, out of the will to survive, she delved even deeper into writing and started fiction writing.
“I nearly died when I was sixteen and soon suffered the loss of our family doctor, who had saved my life. My dear mother passed away the summer of my sophomore year in college. And then a close friend died. It is not an exaggeration to say that I wrote my way out of grief. I often sat in my room on Saturdays at a card table writing short stories.”
She suffered another loss when her family doctor, who had saved her, died. Once again, in order to cope she wrote poetry to help her through the emotional stress. Some of those poems are included in her poetry book collection, Death Comes Riding.
When she looks back on her childhood and teenage years, she recognizes the most valuable lessons her mother taught her: to dream and to develop the skills to make as many dreams as possible come true.
“The most valuable lesson I learned from this wonderful woman is to set lifelong goals. I did exactly that in striving to become both an artist and writer.”
For 24 years she taught Creative Writing and English at the high school level for the Fairfax County Public School system in Northern Virginia. For seven additional years she worked as an English Specialist and Writing Resource Teacher.
It wasn’t until she was 27, working on her Master’s degree at George Mason University, that her first poems were published. One of her professors submitted fifteen of Kreiter-Foronda’s children’s poems to The Quarterly Journal of Education. The poems appear in the January 1973 issue.
She continued to write poetry but still didn’t pursue publication until she enrolled in Peter Klappert’s creative writing class as a graduate student at George Mason University. Klappert broadened her knowledge of contemporary poetry by introducing her to an array of forms, including the dramatic monologue. As a result of his influence, she decided to make poetry her focus in her doctoral program.
“Peter is one of the most brilliant professors I’ve ever encountered. He accepted nothing less than a student’s best. I revised, revised, and revised poems to ensure that the drafts I handed in for critique sessions were the best I could offer at the time.”
Klappert also encouraged Kreiter-Foronda to no longer hide her work, but to submit widely for publication. Kreiter-Foronda took his advice and started submitting her poems to nationwide publications in her early 30s.
Since then she’s published several hundred poems in numerous magazines, six books of poetry, a poetry anthology, and a Virginia Poet Laureate teaching guide.
Kreiter-Forondo defines a poet this way: “A poet is a creative thinker who sculpts well-chiseled, lyrical poems.”
She believes that a poet’s education is never over – true poet is always learning, and a huge process of learning is to voraciously and religiously read poets from all ages and all parts of the world.
“We need to be readers of others’ poetry to inform ourselves about subjects that intrigue a variety of writers and to familiarize ourselves with stylistic possibilities. As opposed to imitating these writers, we need to discover our own unique voices.”
The poets and poems that have influenced Kreiter-Foronda the most are Elizabeth Bishop (“The Fish”), James Wright (“A Blessing”), Peter Klappert (“Gun, White Castle”), and Ai (“The Woman Who Knew Too Much”).
“Bishop’s keen eye for detail taught me how to look closely at a subject and to zero in on every aspect in order to ‘really see’ the undercurrents. Wright taught me how to use concrete images with lyrical intensity. Peter and Ai introduced me to the dramatic monologue form and inspired me to use my research skills to create poems written convincingly in the voices of such eminent figures as Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, Diego Rivera, and Frida Kahlo.”
Kreiter-Foronda usually writes her poems from start to finish on her computer but will always have a notepad and pen on hand to take notes. She can write poems day or night; the only requirement is a quiet environment, which she can usually find at her home.
“I write most of my poems in the Morning Room, which overlooks a private cove, or in my office, a room with a view of hickories, pines, hollies, and dogwood trees. I produce my best work when I’m home alone or taking a solitary walk. Usually, I move quickly ‘into the zone,’ either by reading or by participating in a field experience, such as a kayaking trip.”
It usually takes her several years to complete a book of poetry, but sometimes this can depend on what life’s commitments demand of her at the time, such as workshops, poetry readings, art exhibits, and family chores.
“I’m not one to isolate myself and work on only one project at a time. That would bore me terribly. If I multitask, I’m far more prolific.”
Since retiring from teaching, Kreiter-Foronda leads art-inspired poetry workshops for teachers and students at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and its partners throughout the state of Virginia.
“What an enriching experience it is to combine my love of art, education, and poetry! Basically, I use selected pieces from the VMFA’s collection, as well as on-site art at a partner museum, to inspire poems or short prose writings. I’ve also led workshops at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.”
Right: Carolyn conversing with her students. Copyright by Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda.
She offers three workshops every month and gives on average two poetry readings per month at a variety of locations: art galleries, art museums, schools, universities, retirement homes, hospitals, libraries, bookstores, nursing homes, and homeless shelters.
Contrary Visions
Scripta Humanistica, 1988. Published under the name, Carolyn Kreiter-Kurylo
“My first book, Contrary Visions, falls under the umbrella of polar opposites. Many of the poems were written during graduate school in response to writing assignments. As Peter Klappert insightfully notes in the book’s introduction, ‘It is in . . . [the] Blakean sense of Contraries—the dynamic, constructive opposition of equally true alternatives that lose validity without their counterparts—that Carolyn Kreiter-Kurylo titles her first book Contrary Visions.’ There are quite a few poems written during this period of time that I left out of the book, regardless of whether they had been published or not. The pieces simply didn’t adhere to the book’s focus.
Gathering Light
SCOP Publications, 1993
e-version, Northampton House Press, 2013
“A portion of my dissertation, Gathering Light: A Poet’s Approach to Poetry Analysis, treats the subject of revision. Included are three essays which detail, draft by draft, my meticulous revision process. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the process of writing a poem began with the germ of an idea, followed by research, if necessary. I produced the initial drafts on a legal pad of paper and then moved to the typewriter. Every time I altered a word, phrase, line or typographical arrangement, I retyped the entire poem until it flowed rhythmically. In those days I could churn out drafts relatively quickly. While organizing poems for inclusion in my second book, I noticed the overriding treatment of light and decided to call the collection Gathering Light.”
Death Comes Riding
SCOP Publications, Inc., 1999
“Death Comes Riding offers a perspective on spiritual growth. As the book’s cover statement explains, the poems are ‘set against a background of death, history and myth’ and treat both contemporary and historical characters, ‘some precariously close to death, others speaking from the grave.’ This collection also focuses on my near-death experience and how it altered my perspective on life. While writing this book, I knew where I was headed. Stacy Tuthill of SCOP Publications, Inc. and her Editorial Board offered helpful critiques, which tightened the final version.”
Greatest Hits: 1981-2000
Pudding House Publications, 2001
Currently available from Kattywompus Press
“Greatest Hits: 1981-2000 is part of an invitational chapbook series which, in the publisher’s words, ‘celebrates poetry’s place in our culture and honors the artists whose lines elevate America’s poetic sensibilities.’ I was asked by the press to select poems which had appeared in anthologies or received prizes or special citations. I was also asked to write an introduction about ‘the lives of the poems.’ The tight-knit focus of this series narrowed the list of poems I could include in the chapbook.”
River Country
San Francisco Bay Press, 2008
“After moving to Eastern Virginia, my husband and I established a Wildlife Retreat, certified by the National Wildlife Federation. We devoted hours to feeding and caring for birds and other creatures—all while observing their habits and features. We spent time kayaking in creeks, an activity which introduced us to ospreys, eagles, herons, and egrets. I attended university lectures on environmentalism and observed the habits of farmers and watermen. All along, I was writing poems, based on my close observations of this area and its lush beauty. In time, I started paying close attention to the environmental ills. Poems about these subjects came together naturally in River Country.”
https://www.carolynforonda.com/poetry-books.html
The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
In a Certain Place, edited by Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda and Alice Tarnowski
SCOP Publications, Inc., 2000
“In A Certain Place is a poetry anthology, which I co-edited, to highlight the work of accomplished writers in the Washington, D.C. area. The book contains an introduction by award-winning poet, Br. Rick Wilson, T.O.R. Franciscan.”
Four Virginia Poet Laureate: An Anthology & Reader’s Guide, edited by Sofia Starnes
Cedar Creek Publishing, 2013
“Four Virginia Poets Laureate 2004 – 2012 – An Anthology & Readers Guide is edited by our current poet laureate, Sofia Starnes, and includes my work, along with that of three sister laureates, Rita Dove, Claudia Emerson, and Kelly Cherry.”
Contact Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda at www.carolynforonda.com or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda for more information.
This feature was posted in three parts on the Chris Rice Cooper Blog Spot Dot Com on August of 2013
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