University of Central Arkansas
MFA Program
Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction
Conway, AR
Application Deadline:
Sat, 02/01/2025
Application Fee:
$45
Affiliated Publications/Publishers:
Genre: Poetry
Elliot, the Poet
Caption:
One proud parent put together this amusing video of poet-toddler Elliot who, like all the great bards, uses "the fewest words to convey the greatest meaning."
Genre:
Tags:
A Winner Emerges From Eliot Prize's Shortened Shortlist
Earlier this week the U.K. Poetry Book Society (PBS) announced the winner of the prize two notable poets found too controversial to covet. The T. S. Eliot Prize, a fifteen-thousand-pound award (approximately $23,110) given for a book of poetry published in the previous year, went to John Burnside for his eleventh collection, Black Cat Bone (Jonathan Cape).
A little over a month ago, finalists John Kinsella (Armour, Picador) and Alice Oswald (Memorial, Faber and Faber) withdrew their respective collections from the prize running in protest of the recently-announced cosponsorship of the award by Aurum, an investment banking firm. Aurum's funding replaces that denied the PBS this year by Arts Council England, though Valerie Eliot, the late poet's widow, is reported to be the Eliot Prize's major sponsor.
The remaining finalists were Carol Ann Duffy for The Bees (Picador), Leontia Flynn for Profit and Loss (Jonathan Cape), David Harsent for Night (Faber and Faber), Esther Morgan for Grace (Bloodaxe Books), Daljit Nagra for Tippoo Sultan's Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!! (Faber and Faber), Sean O'Brien for November (Picador), and Bernard O'Donoghue for Farmer's Cross (Faber and Faber). Each finalist received one thousand pounds (approximately $1,540).
In the video below, Burnside discusses the title of his winning book and the subjects he's gone on to research, including the Weather Underground activists of the 1970s.
James Franco's Hart
Caption:
The Broken Tower, the Hart Crane biopic writen, directed, and starring James Franco, was released this week and can now be downloaded or viewed on demand. There's been a lot of speculation about the film ever since Franco aquired the rights to Paul Mariani's biography of the same title, but at least one critic isn't impressed. Writing in Slate, Evan Hughes called the film "incredibly dull."
Genre:
Ilya Kaminsky's Literary Journal Rundown
San Diego-based P&W-supported poet and presenter of literary events Ilya Kaminsky, author of Dancing in Odessa and co-editor of Ecco Anthology of International Poetry blogs about San Diego literary journals.
Among the literary presses and journals in San Diego is Sandra and Ben Doller’s 1913 press and 1913: a journal of forms. Founded almost ten years ago, the press and journal publishes some of the most innovative writing around—Eleanor Antin, Jerome Rothenberg, Rae Armantrout, Cole Swensen, John Yau, Claudia Rankine, John Keene, and Sawako Nakayasu, among others. Sandra and Ben Doller, important contemporary poets in their own right, are very generous to donate their time and resources to make this literary feast happen in San Diego.
Another exciting literary journal published in San Diego is the P&W-supported California Journal of Poetics. This beautiful online journal that includes interviews, reviews, literary panels and conversations is presented with a profound desire to expand the literary discussion in new ways. Recent issues include interviews with longtime P&W-supported poet Robert Pinsky and a profile of Tomas Transtromer.
Certainly the oldest literary journal in San Diego, Fiction International, was conceived almost twenty years ago, and is considered one of the country’s leading literary publications. Having published such greats as Clarice Lispector, Allen Ginsberg, Kathy Acker, J.M. Coetzee, and many others, Fiction International promotes honest, musical, literary prose.
One is pleased to see that there are new journals and presses being launched in San Diego, even at this time of deep economic uncertainty. Just last week, I heard about the new national journal for undergraduates with a particular emphasis on literature in translation, Alchemy: Journal of Translation @ UCSD (University of California San Diego). The journal was founded by Amelia Glaser, a talented translator and first-rate scholar of Slavic and Yiddish literature!
Photo: Ilya Kaminsky.
Major support for Readings/Workshops events in California is provided by The James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Portlandia: Did You Read It?
Caption:
Did you read the latest issue of Poets & Writers Magazine? Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein star in Portlandia, currently in its second season on the Independent Film Channel.
Two for One
Take a poem you feel is finished, and divide the poem in half. Write two new poems by filling in those two halves.
Natalie Goldberg in Taos, New Mexico
Caption:
"The first thing that comes to mind when I think about the writing life: space. I just think of space. Time to daydream. Time to notice things," says Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala, 1986), Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life (Bantam, 1990), and other books on writing.
Type Books Gets Animated
Caption:
The owners of Type Books in Toronto spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books to produce this amazing video featuring music by Grayson Matthews.
Jack Gilbert
Caption:
"My joy is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light," writes Jack Gilbert in his poem "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart." His Collected Poems will be published by Knopf in March.
Genre:
Pages
