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Surprise a friend or loved one with a spontaneous poem today. Perhaps you've been very busy and haven't spoken to a friend in a while. Write her a little poem to catch her up on what's been going on with you and drop it in the mail. Or maybe your grandmother is in need of some cheering up. Read her a few lines over the phone to make her laugh. Don't put too much thought into rhyme scheme or structure; just go with the flow.
"I play Haydn after a black day / and feel a simple warmth in my hands." In this video featuring Tomas Tranströmer's poem "Allegro," the Swedish poet and Nobel laureate plays piano in his home in Stockholm. Tranströmer passed away on March 26 at the age of eighty-three.
The Academy of American Poets announced today that Sjohnna McCray has won the 2015 Walt Whitman Award for his debut poetry collection, Rapture. McCray will receive $5,000, publication by Graywolf Press in 2016, a six-week paid residency in Umbria, Italy, and distribution of his book to all Academy members. He will also be featured on the Academy of American Poets website as well as in its print publication, American Poets.
Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Tracy K. Smith selected McCray as this year’s winner. Of McCray’s manuscript, Smith writes, “These poems are so beautifully crafted, so courageous in their truth-telling, and so full of what I like to think of as lyrical wisdom—the visceral revelations that only music, gesture and image, working together, can impart—that not only did they stop me in my tracks as a judge, but they changed me as a person. Sjohnna McCray’s is an ecstatic and original voice, and he lends it to family, history, race and desire in ways that are healing and enlarging. Rapture announces a prodigious talent and a huge human heart.”
McCray, forty-three, grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. He holds an MFA from the University of Virginia as well as a master’s in English education from Columbia University’s Teacher College. McCray received AWP’s Intro Journal Award and Ohio University’s Emerson Poetry Prize, and his poems have appeared in numerous publications including the Southern Review and Shenandoah. McCray currently lives and teaches in Savannah, Georgia.
Now in its fortieth year, the Walt Whitman Award is given annually for a first book of poetry. The prize was expanded last year to include the new partnerships with Graywolf Press and the Civatelli Ranieri Center. Earlier this month, the Academy also expanded eligibility criteria for all of its prizes to include non-citizens living in the United States. Previous winners of the Walt Whitman Award include Nicole Cooley, Suji Knock Kim, Eric Pankey, and J. Michael Martinez.
The Academy of American Poets was founded in 1934 and is the “largest member-supported nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets.” The Academy distributed over $200,000 in prize money to poets in 2014.
Photo: Sjohnna McCray (credit Aaron Mervin)
Submissions are currently open for Finishing Line Press’s 2015 New Women’s Voices Series Chapbook Competition. A prize of $1,000 and publication by Finishing Line Press will be given for a poetry chapbook written by woman who has not yet published a full-length collection. Leah Maines, poet and director of Finishing Line Press, will judge. Ten finalists will be offered publication in the New Women’s Voices chapbook series.
Submit a manuscript of up to 26 pages with a biography, acknowledgements page, cover letter, and $15 entry fee by March 31. Writers may submit entries through the online submission manager or via postal mail to Finishing Line Press, P.O. Box 1626, Georgetown, KY 40324. Multiple submissions are accepted. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Finishing Line Press is an small poetry press based in Georgetown, Kentucky. Established in 1998 by C. J. Morrison, the press specializes in poetry chapbooks and publishes over one hundred collections per year. Finishing Line administers two annual competitions: the New Women’s Voices Series Chapbook Competition and the Open Chapbook Competition, which both offer $1,000 and publication. Sarah Green won the 2014 New Women's Voices prize for her chapbook Skeleton Evenings.
"I'm pursuing a kind of language which is just as complicated, and also as transparent, as human experience." The MacArthur Genius Grant–recipient reads from his new poetry collection, How to Be Drawn (Penguin, 2015), and speaks about his musical influences and how he continues to develop his voice.
"Consider the white space / between words on a page, not just / the margins around them." This short film by directors Aaron Kotz and Frida Regaza, narrated by Scott Gentle, features Linda Pastan's poem "Consider the Space Between Stars." Pastan's poetry collection Insomnia is forthcoming in October from Norton.
It is rare for a solar eclipse to occur on the same day as the spring equinox, which is exactly what happened last Friday. Astrologers predicted this day would bring forth a major turning point in our lives, the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new phase. This week, write a poem about what you think this rare event might symbolize. For inspiration, read about how eclipses have been viewed throughout history, and what our ancestors might have thought about this occurrence.
Sandra Lim reads selections from her poetry collection The Wilderness (Norton, 2014) and Frank X Walker reads from his poetry collection Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers (University of Georgia Press, 2013). The Poets on Craft reading series is sponsored by Cave Canem and the MFA Creative Writing Program at the New School.
Jamie Asaye FitzGerald, Director of Poets & Writers’ California Office and Readings & Workshops (West) program, blogs about the California program’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration, which took place on March 6, 2015, in Los Angeles.
The excitement in the room was palpable. The open mic sign-up sheets were filling up with names (fifty-two, to be precise!). Free copies of Poets & Writers Magazine were flying off the table. The audience of nearly one hundred sat in chairs, congregated in the aisles between bookshelves, and leaned on the balcony railings of downtown Los Angeles’s the Last Bookstore for a special celebration.
For twenty-five years, Poets & Writers has served California through the Readings & Workshops program, providing grants to thousands of writers and reaching an audience of tens of thousands annually. We offer regular roundtable meetings for the literary community, sponsor an annual cross-cultural reading, and much more.
The evening’s featured readers were introduced by emcee Mike “the Poet” Sonksen, himself a P&W-supported writer, and included Gloria Alvarez, Olga Garcia Echeverria, Kate Gale, Dorothy Randall Gray, Peter J. Harris, Richard Modiano, Ruth Nolan, Cati Porter, and Terry Wolverton, as well as past Readings & Workshops program directors Ryan Tranquilla and Cheryl Klein. Together, these writers represented organizations that included Avenue 50 Studio, Red Hen Press, Urban Possibilities, the World Stage, Grand Performances, Beyond Baroque, Inlandia Institute, and Writers at Work. Between open-mic readers, program assistant Brandi M. Spaethe raffled off fantastic P&W door prizes!
Writer Ruth Nolan, who drove to Los Angeles from the blooming desert of California’s Inland Empire to participate in the event, thanked P&W for building writing communities in unlikely places with unlikely people.
Poet and teacher Dorothy Randall Gray, who has received P&W support for her Urban Possibilities workshops serving Los Angeles’s Skid Row, summed it up: "I sometimes think of writers as swimming in a sea of creativity—and, you know, in this sea we have tidal waves and monsoons and tsunamis. We also have blue skies and smooth waters and smooth sailing. I think of Poets & Writers as people, as vessels, who help us get to the shore of success by giving us their support—but even more than support, by saying, We believe in you and we believe in what you're doing, and we're going to put our money where our mouths are. They have always been there to support, to guide, to say, Hey, we're gonna back whatever you do. So I just want to give a huge thank you. Thank you, thank you, for all the support that you've given to me and all the writers that are sitting in this audience, and those writers to come."
Poets & Writers is proud to serve and partner with the writers and literary presenters of California, and we hope to do so for years to come.
Photo 1: Former program director Ryan Tranquilla. Photo 2: (Left to right): Featured poet Cati Porter, featured poet Richard Modiano, P&W intern Tammy Tarng, P&W program assistant Brandi M. Spaethe, P&W program director Jamie Asaye FitzGerald, former P&W intern Leticia Valente, featured poet Ruth Nolan, emcee Mike “the Poet” Sonksen. Credit: Katy Winn.
Major support for Readings & Workshops in California is provided by the James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
This short film from the Poetry School in England features Tom Jenks's poem "Ninety-Nine Names for Small Dogs." The poem is from Jenks's poetry collection A Priori (If P Then Q, 2008).
