[The DavenTree] (ca. 1974–1976)
Drawing, pencil on paper (9"x12")

Created and copyrighted © by Steve Davenport. All rights reserved.

Arteest Statement

Notes posted to Facebook re the drawing above:

21 July 2018: Done at home as a Christmas present for my parents. Maybe the only bit of art I ever done did. Back around the time I took one of my two undergrad Creative Writing classes at SIUE [Southern Illinois University Edwardsville].

1 December 2018: This here decades-old drawing of mine, the only non-doodle I ever dang done, now has a name courtesy of KYSO Flash: The DavenTree. Much to my surprise, it is now the subject of a poem (ekphrastic) challenge. Read all about it.* You can also find KYSO Flash on Facebook, like what they do, and share the contest. You can also enter it. Don’t ask me questions, though, about the mysteries of my art and my tree. I now have a big head and I can’t be bothered.

—Drawing and commentary were published previously on Davenport’s Facebook page and appear here with his kind permission.

* Results of The DavenTree Writing Challenge

Steve Davenport’s

poetry and prose have been published in numerous magazines and journals. He is the author of two books of poetry: Uncontainable Noise, winner of the Transcontinental Poetry Award (Pavement Saw Press, 2006), and Overpass (Misty Publications, 2012). One of his stories, originally published in The Southern Review, received Special Mention in the 2011 Pushcart Prize anthology. His “Murder on Gasoline Lake,” published first in Black Warrior Review and later selected by New American Press as the Spring 2007 winner of their chapbook contest, is listed as Notable in Best American Essays 2007. His chapbook Nine Poems and Three Fictions won one of The Literary Review’s 2007-2008 Charles Angoff Awards for Outstanding Contributions in a Volume Year.

He has served as Associate Director of Creative Writing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since the position was created in 2004, and he served twice as Creative Nonfiction Editor of Ninth Letter (2004-2009, 2014). He teaches one Creative Writing class a semester at the university, and every couple of years team-teaches a songwriting course in the school of Music. His scholarship includes an essay about Kerouac and work in Boys Don’t Cry?: Rethinking Narratives of Masculinity and Emotion in the U.S. (Columbia Univ. Press), and an essay about Richard Hugo’s poetry in All Our Stories Are Here: Critical Perspectives on Montana Literature (Univ. of Nebraska Press).

Davenport was among the contributing editors for Serving House Journal (now retired after 18 issues and, since its creation in 2010, named by Web del Sol as among the Top 50 literary magazines).

Learn more about the author and his work, including his songs, at his website: gasolinelake.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Big Bill and the Circus Bear, CNF by Davenport in Serving House Journal (Issue 18, Spring 2018); nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018 (for the 2020 Pushcart Anthology, Volume 44)

⚡ Welcome to Gasoline Lake: An Interview with Steve Davenport by Ron Cooper in Late Last Night Books (13 October 2018)

⚡ Dear Money Shot, a micro-essay by Davenport in Serving House Journal (Issue 7, Spring 2013)

⚡ It’s Only Then, a collaborative poem with Renée Ashley in KYSO Flash (Issue 1, Fall 2014)

⚡ Four Poems by Davenport in The Museum of Americana (Issue 12): “Dear Horse I Rode In On,” “Dear West Main, Dear Decatur, Dear Lynn,” “Dear Lover,” and “Dear Harper Valley, Diminishing”

⚡ Race & Place 1968, an essay by Davenport in Serving House Journal (Issue 18, Spring 2015)

⚡ Wrong Dog Song, a poem in DIAGRAM (5.5)

⚡ Dismembered Love Notes, an erotic poem in Spork Press (Issue 3.1, Winter 2004)