Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:
In honor of National Poetry Month, Literary Hub suggests thirteen poetry collections to read this month, including new titles by Tomás Q. Morín, Chen Chen, Kai Cheng Thom, and Ariana Reines.
Speaking of poetry, the University of Arizona Poetry Center has posted videos of the eight lectures and readings featured in its “Climate Change and Poetry” series. The poets who spoke in the series included Robert Hass, Joy Harjo, Brenda Hillman, and Ross Gay.
Social activist and Star Trek actor George Takei will publish a graphic memoir in 2018 with publisher IDW. The memoir will cover three years Takei spent in a U.S. internment camp during World War II. (Hollywood Reporter)
The Palestinian National Authority has banned Abbad Yahya’s fourth novel, Crime in Ramallah, which includes a scene wherein a gay character seems to defile the memory of Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader. Yahya, who has also received death threats, is currently in hiding for fear of arrest or harm. (NPR)
Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko died on Saturday at age eighty-four in Oklahoma. Yevtushenko was known for his poetry, especially the poem “Babi Yar,” which spoke out against anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. (ABC News)
At Vogue Megan O’Grady takes a closer look at the recent spate of novels about female friendship, from Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series to Zadie Smith’s Swing Time to Julie Buntin’s forthcoming debut novel, Marlena.
“These poets ask how can we escape or overcome the past. By staring at it, they seem to answer, as into a mirror, until we catch up to what made us.” Craig Morgan Teicher explores two poetry collections, Robin Coste Lewis’s Voyage of the Sable Venus and Adrian Matejka’s Map to the Stars, and how they reckon with the history of black people in America.
Emmett Rensin argues that the value of the latest book from Joan Didion, South and West, lies not in her so-called prophesy of the rise of Trump and populism, but in the insight it provides into her artistic process. (New Republic)
