Write It Again
The author of Took House explores what happens when poets permit themselves to write about the same subject multiple times.
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Article Archive
Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.
Ten Questions for Isaac Fitzgerald
“A reader who truly needs these stories might not come to them for weeks, months, or even years.” —Isaac Fitzgerald, author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional
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Make It Strange
The author of Took House explores the importance of “strangeness” in poetry and offers a method for capturing this quality by combining two different draft poems.
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Ada Limón Named U.S. Poet Laureate
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has named Ada Limón the next poet laureate of the United States.
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Ten Questions for Safia Elhillo
“This book really fought me, or I fought it, for the first couple of years.” —Safia Elhillo, author of Girls That Never Die
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Hold Your Darlings
The author of Took House explores a kinder approach to revision, in which language cut during one editorial process may be saved as material for a new writing project.
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Ten Questions for Zeina Hashem Beck
“I think it was essential that I turn further inward, that I trust the ‘quieter’ poems.” —Zeina Hashem Beck, author of O
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Ten Questions for Maya Marshall
“Write because you want to, not to define yourself for the benefit of other people.” —Maya Marshall, author of All the Blood Involved in Love
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Setting the Table for Your Reader
The author of [WHITE] explores the benefits of writing to a specific audience and the risks of trying to meet the market’s imagined demands.
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Ten Questions for Ottessa Moshfegh
“I was struck by the freedom of third person, how I could roam and jump and skip around, and cozy up to characters and then back away.” —Ottessa Moshfegh, author of Lapvona
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Revise Like a Painter
The author of [WHITE] considers how writers might take inspiration from visual artists in their approach to revision, pushing beyond surface editing to “see” their work afresh.
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Exclusive Excerpt: Blithedale Canyon
An excerpt from Blithedale Canyon by Michael Bourne, who writes in the July/August 2022 issue about his long path to publishing his debut novel without the assistance of a literary agent.
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The Anthologist: A Compendium of Uncommon Collections
A look at three new anthologies, including Body Language: Writers on Identity, Physicality, and Making Space for Ourselves, edited by Nicole Chung and Matt Ortile.
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Book Prize Celebrates Older Poets
Recognizing that talent and relevance have no age limit, the Henry Morgenthau III First Book Poetry Prize from Passager Books spotlights debuts by poets age seventy and older.
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Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
The first lines of a dozen noteworthy books including The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser and Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang.
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Centering Neurodivergent Poets
The Multiverse book series from Milkweed Editions spotlights the work of neurodivergent poets and powerful new ways of “languaging.”
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First Fiction 2022
Interviews with debut authors Leila Mottley, Tsering Yangzom Lama, Arinze Ifeakandu, Paige Clark, and Morgan Talty, as well as excerpts from their books.
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Keeping the Stories: A Profile of Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s new novel, Women of Light, chronicles five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West and is imbued with her rich sense of history and pride in her own mixed ancestry: “The story of who I am is inextricably tied to this country.”
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Open Letter’s Translator Triptych
By presenting translations in trios, a new initiative from Open Letter Books puts international literature in context and celebrates the role of translator as curator.
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Small Press Points: rinky dink press
Each no bigger than a deck of cards, rinky dink’s “micro zines” aim to “get poetry back in the hands (and pockets) of the people” and make the genre more accessible.
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Literary MagNet: Raquel Gutiérrez
The author on the journals and zines that published essays from their collection, Brown Neon.
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The Written Image: Stopan
The celebrated Bulgarian bookmaker Stopan calls on his country’s craft traditions to create fantastical artist’s books that are “both in and out of folklore.”
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Q&A: Translating Ukrainian Voices
Zenia Tompkins, founder of the Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation, discusses the impact of Russia’s invasion on her work and the agency’s urgent efforts to bring Ukrainian voices to the West.
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Ten Questions for Christine Kandic Torres
“I wanted to write female friendship in a way that felt honest to me.” —Christine Kandic Torres, author of The Girls in Queens
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Freedom From Genre as Freedom to Write
The author of [WHITE] explores how writing outside one’s primary genre can lead to literary breakthroughs.
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