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“This brown girl from Chicago also loves the outdoors.” In the book trailer for her fourth poetry collection, Oceanic (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), Aimee Nezhukumatathil describes her motivation for writing and her passion for the natural world. Her illustrated collection of nature essays, World of Wonders, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions.
The modern significance of Fahrenheit 451; Amina Gautier and Joan Silber win PEN short story award; Academy of American Poets wins Innovations in Reading Prize; and other news.
Sarah Sala’s debut poetry collection, Devil’s Lake, was a finalist for the 2017 Subito Press Book Prize and her poem “Hydrogen” was featured in the Elements episode of NPR’s hit show Radiolab. She is the series facilitator for Office Hours Poetry Workshop, and coproduces AmpLit Fest with Lamprophonic and Summer on the Hudson.
Office Hours Poetry Workshop emerged from the deep need for a program that supports and elevates post–MFA writers. The goal: to build a no-fee workshop that accommodates full-time work schedules, childcare needs, and celebrates writers who are POC, LGBTQ+, women-identified, adjunct instructors, and any and all combination. More than anything, I wanted to compensate our writers. The Poets & Writers’ Readings & Workshops grant became a profound way to do so.
In many ways, publishing has left poetry behind. Some magazines charge fees to submit work, and often can’t afford payment upon publication. I regularly see venues advertise $100 pay for fiction or nonfiction pieces and only $25 for poems. While I recognize this scale is often based on word count, it speaks volumes about the legitimacy of poetry in the modern arena.
June Jordan said that poetry is a political act because it involves truth telling. Very often this means writing through a lens counter to mainstream culture, embodying our power and vulnerabilities on the page, and practicing radical empathy with fellow artists. For this reason, it was an immense pleasure to introduce the Office Hours Spring Showcase fellows at the Bureau of General Services–Queer Division (BGSQD).
With Marco DaSilva’s visionary art installation “My Quaint Struggle” as backdrop, Sanj Nair captivated the audience with works that delved into identity, agency, and womanhood. Marty Correia’s pieces skillfully wrestled with human relationships—queer and familial— then brought forth the magical properties of DaSilva’s golden altar by dubbing them “authority panels.”
Next, Yanyi read his self-described “soft prose poems”—rich and particular renderings of the domestic. Caitlin McDonnell’s lyric narratives confronted the reality of gun violence in America and presented a tapestry of inventive first lines from novels she’s written and/or abandoned. Holly Mitchell’s lush writing strode between epithalamion and coming-of-age in a conservative landscape.
Paco Márquez rounded out the night with sinuous poems from his new chapbook, Portraits in G Minor (Folded Word, 2017), and treated the audience to the Spanish and English versions of a Pablo Neruda poem he recently assisted William O’Daly in translating from Book of Twilight (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), a recent publication of Neruda’s debut book, Crepusculario.
Overall, the evening was overwhelmingly restorative. Here, in New York City, and at the Bureau, we make our home among friends as we seek to change the status quo.
Support for the Readings & Workshops Program in New York City is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with additional support from the Frances Abbey Endowment, the Cowles Charitable Trust, and the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Photos: (top) Sarah Sala (Credit: Talya Chalef). (middle) Sanj Nair (Credit: Sarah Sala). (bottom) Yanyi (Credit: Sarah Sala).“What are you? Where are you from? / I say, California, / but that’s not what they are looking for...” This Motionpoems film is an adaptation of Tiana Clark’s poem “The Ayes Have It,” directed by Savanah Leaf and narrated by Malina Tirrell. Clark is the author of I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018).
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Glenn Close reads “Old Wives’ Tales on Which I Was Fed” from Jenny Xie’s debut collection, Eye Level (Graywolf Press, 2018), which won the Academy of American Poets’ 2017 Walt Whitman Award. Eye Level is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Submissions are currently open for Eyewear Publishing’s inaugural Franz Wright Prize for Poetry. An award of $2,000 and publication by Eyewear will be given annually for a poetry collection. Kaveh Akbar will judge.
The winning collection will be published on March 18, 2019, which would have been Wright’s sixty-sixth birthday. The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, who was the son of poet James Wright, died in 2015.
Poets of any nationality writing in English and at any stage in their careers are eligible for the prize. Using the online submission system, submit a manuscript of 48 to 120 pages with a $15 entry fee by June 6.
London-based Eyewear Publishing aims “to build bridges between cultures and continents and to support authors young and old.” Visit the website for more information.
Listen to Kaveh Akbar, one of the poets included in Poets & Writers’ 2018 Debut Poetry feature, read from his collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017).
(Photo: Franz Wright; Credit: Aaron Skinner)
Rumaan Alam on writing about race and gender; Lorrie Moore’s politics; the history of young adult literature; and other news.
Tommy Pico speaks with Kasie Griffitts for Duende District’s Duende Conversations series about life as a poet, tribal storytelling, and the shifty definition of literary success. Pico is the author of Junk (Tin House Books, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
In her fourth poetry collection, Oceanic, published by Copper Canyon Press in April, Aimee Nezhukumatathil explores themes of love, discovery, family, motherhood, and home, often through a lens of connectedness with the natural world, focusing on the wonders of the ocean and the shapes, movements, and behaviors of flora and fauna. In “Penguin Valentine,” a penguin waits for his partner, and the speaker asks, “During those days of no sun, does he / remember the particular bend / of his mate’s neck, that hint of yellow / near her ears?” As spring transitions into summer, look to the flora and fauna in your local neighborhood, at the park or the beach, or on a vacation or a trip, for inspiration. Write a love poem that uses animal or plant behavior as a lesson about how we interact as humans. How might tendencies or characteristics of nature resonate with your own relationships?
