Genre: Poetry

News Flash

The Time Is Now
7.30.24

In Divya Victor’s poem “Blood / Soil,” which appears in her collection Curb (Nightboat Books, 2021), she writes about Sureshbhai Patel, a man who had traveled from India to visit his son and infant grandson in Alabama and was assaulted by police for alleged suspicious behavior while taking a neighborhood stroll. As she describes the physical encounter, Victor includes Newton’s laws of motion and experiments with the visuals of typography and spacing in her incorporation of quotations to draw attention to movement and a sense of confrontation between bodies and language. Write a poem inspired by a news incident that feels resonant to you and provokes a strong emotion. Consider adding bits of science, research, or reported dialogue that might help create a more expansive, interpretive angle.

Urayoán Noel Reads From the Letras Latinas Archive

Caption: 

Poet, translator, and editor Urayoán Noel reads two poems from the Letras Latinas Oral History Project, an archive that began in 2005, in this Poets House video. For more about Letras Latinas, read this Q&A with director Francisco Aragón in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 
Poetry
Translation
Tags: 
Urayoán Noel
Letras Latinas
Poets House
reading
Spanish
Latinx
March/April 2024

Reclamation Reading: Natalie Diaz, Craig Santos Perez, and Beth Piatote

Caption: 

In this video, the University of California in Berkeley celebrates their Arts Research Center’s 2023 Poetry & the Senses program with a reading by Indigenous writers and program facilitators Beth Piatote, Natalie Diaz, and Craig Santos Perez on the theme of reclamation. Perez’s new collection, Call This Mutiny: Uncollected Poems (Omnidawn, 2024), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

 

Genre: 
Poetry
Cross-Genre
Tags: 
UC Berkeley
Arts Research Center
Poetry & the Senses
Natalie Diaz
Beth Piatote
Craig Santos Perez
reading
Page One
July/August 2024

I Witness

The Time Is Now
7.23.24

In the twentieth anniversary edition of Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine writes in the preface about her use of the first-person voice “to bear witness to the witness” and provide emotion while maintaining an intimacy within the text. “Anybody could embody the first person and be our guide through the text,” writes Rankine. “For me, at the time, this was a liberating mechanism for getting at the ineffable affective disorder of the moment without disconnecting from the people affected by it.” Write a poem about an event currently unfolding in the world, either locally or on a global scale. Deploy the first-person “I” as a tool to guide the reader through what’s being witnessed. Are there multiple emotional truths at play? How can you give them shape?

National Poetry Book Contest

Louisville Review
Entry Fee: 
$25
Deadline: 
August 31, 2024

A prize of $1,000, publication by Fleur-de-Lis Press, and 25 author copies will be given triennially for a debut poetry collection. Jeanie Thompson will judge.

Faylita Hicks: A Map of My Want

Caption: 

In this Haymarket Books event, Faylita Hicks reads from her second poetry collection, A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. The event includes an introduction by Aricka Foreman and readings by Andrea Change, Billy Tuggle, Carmendy Tuggle, and Ruben Quesada.

Genre: 
Poetry
Tags: 
Faylita Hicks
A Map of My Want
Haymarket Books
Aricka Foreman
Andrea Change
Billy Tuggle
Carmendy Tuggle
Ruben Quesada
Page One
July/August 2024

States of Matter

The Time Is Now
7.16.24

In medieval European cathedrals, some of the panes of the beautiful stained glass windows are thicker at the bottom than at the top, creating misconceptions that the seemingly solid glass has melted over time. According to an article published in Scientific American, glass is an amorphous solid, a state that is neither solid nor liquid but something in between disproving the theory of melted glass. The differences in thickness of old glass windows is merely a product of the manufacturing process, giving them a melted look. This week write a poem inspired by the idea of something, or even someone, existing in an in-between state. Consider playing with the line breaks and white space of your page to mirror or contrast with your chosen subject.

Tara M. Stringfellow on Magic Enuff

Caption: 

In this WREG News Channel 3 interview in Memphis, Tara M. Stringfellow talks about how her work as an attorney informed her writing and discusses the poems in her first collection, Magic Enuff (Dial Press, 2024). For more from Stringfellow, read her installment of our Ten Questions series.

Genre: 
Poetry
Tags: 
Tara Stringfellow
Magic Enuff
Dial Press
WREG News Channel 3
Memphis
interview
Ten Questions
2024

Lifetimes

The Time Is Now
7.9.24

In the 2023 film Past Lives, writer and director Celine Song explores the concept of inyeon through the main character Nora, a Korean American woman who navigates her relationships with two loves, her husband and her childhood best friend. “There is a word in Korean—inyeon. It means providence or fate. But it’s specifically about relationships between people,” says Nora to her husband when first meeting him. “It’s an inyeon if two strangers even walk by each other on the street and their clothes accidentally brush. Because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives. If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of inyeon over 8,000 lifetimes.” Write a poem that contemplates a connection of this type, a fated or destined encounter with another person, whether brief or long-lasting. What might you have meant to each other in a past life?

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