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Ten debut poets who published in 2021, including Threa Almontaser and Shangyang Fang, discuss the inspiration for their books, their writers block remedies, and advice for other poets.
“Listen to me. I am telling you / a true thing. This is the only kingdom.” In this installment of Ours Poetica, a series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly, chef and author of Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking Samin Nosrat reads Aracelis Girmay’s poem “Elegy.”
Aracelis Girmay’s poem “Elegy,” from her second poetry collection, Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, 2011), begins with a question: “What to do with this knowledge that our living is not guaranteed?” The poem’s speaker finds hope in the natural world as a way of answering this existential question: “Perhaps one day you touch the young branch / of something beautiful. & it grows & grows.” Write a poem that seeks to answer what it means to be impermanent. What do you wish to leave behind?
“I don’t call it sleep anymore. / I’ll risk losing something new instead,” reads Natalie Diaz from her poem “From the Desire Field” in this Graywolf Press virtual event celebrating her collection Postcolonial Love Poem, for which she won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in poetry.
Submissions are open for the 2021 Essay Press Book Contest, cosponsored by the University of Washington in Bothell MFA program. Given for manuscripts “that extend or challenge the formal possibilities of prose,” the award includes publication by Essay Press, a cash prize of $1,000, and an invitation to read on the Bothell campus near Seattle, travel expenses covered. Lyric essays, prose poems or poetics, experimental biography and autobiography, and hybridized text/art manuscripts, among other forms, are eligible. Ronaldo Wilson will judge.
Using only the online submission system, submit a manuscript of 70 to 200 pages with a $20 entry fee ($25 to receive a copy of a previously published Essay Press book) by December 15. Some fee waivers are available. All entries will be considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Authors Eula Biss, Stephen Cope, and Catherine Taylor founded Essay Press in 2006. The independent, volunteer-run press publishes “artful, innovative writing that questions convention and explores issues of significant contemporary relevance.” Previous winners of the book contest include Valerie Hsiung, Silvina López Medin, and Yanara Friedland.
“Hip-hop is Ralph Ellison, who once said the blues is like running a razor blade along an open sore.” In this audio recording from the 1996 album Flippin’ the Script: Rap Meets Poetry released by Mouth Almighty Records, author and critic Greg Tate reads his poem “What Is Hip Hop?” The influential journalist and author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America (Simon & Schuster, 1992), died at the age of sixty-three on December 7, 2021.
“The name means ‘odd.’ / The name means ‘queer.’ / It can denote an ‘odd fish,’” writes Mark Wunderlich in his poem “Wunderlich.” The poem serves as an exploration of the poet’s last name, interlacing a historical overview of his family’s ancestry with suggestive definitions that compound and contradict. “The name means ‘electric organ maestro.’ / The name means ‘famous botanical illustrator.’” This week write a poem inspired by your last name. Allow yourself to get carried away with fact and fable, letting your imagination spin a new history for your family name.
“Sea turtle, be snapping. See poetry, be action.” In this video, Mason Granger reads his poem “Sea Turtle” for Write About Now Poetry, which hosts a weekly spoken word open mic series in Houston.
Calling all poets with a chapbook manuscript! New York City’s Center for Book Arts (CBA) is accepting submissions for its annual Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition. The winning poet’s chapbook will be published by CBA in a limited edition designed by a book artist. The winner will also receive a cash prize of $500, an honorarium of $500 to participate in a reading with CBA, and a weeklong residency at Millay Arts in Austerlitz, New York. This year’s judge is Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge.
Using the online submission system, submit a poetry manuscript of up to 21 pages (or 450 lines) with a $30 entry fee by December 31. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
A tradition for over twenty-five years, the Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition has previously honored work by poets including Miriam Bird Greenberg, Luisa A. Igloria, and Katerina I. Ramos-Jordán. Bianca Rae Messinger won last year’s competition with Parallel Bars.
“I pick up the phone and send you some words / about my trans body,” reads J. Jennifer Espinoza from her poem “My Trans Body,” included in her collection Outside of the Body There Is Something Like Hope (Big Lucks, 2018), in this installment of Ours Poetica, a video series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.
