Genre: Poetry

Happy Babbling

The Time Is Now
7.9.19

“Language is a living being. I think that language came before humans, not the other way around…. It might not have been a particularly logical language; more likely, it was paradisiacal and timeless, a kind of happy babbling for the sake of babbling, a kind of music.” In her essay “Language and Madness,” translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson and Joyelle McSweeney and posted on the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog, Aase Berg writes about the influence of power and patriarchy on language and describes an evolution by which language has become self-conscious and utilitarian, “more descriptive instead of creative.” How has your own language output—in both everyday and poetic usage—been tamed? Write a poem that plays with the idea of timeless, illogical language. What does happy babbling look or sound like? What expressive potential can you tap into to write with childish madness about the banalities of private life?

Summer Reading Recommendations

Caption: 

In this PBS NewsHour video, NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the Washington Post’s Carlos Lozada highlight their favorite books for summer reading, which include Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press, 2019), Jill Ciment’s The Body in Question (Pantheon, 2019), and José Olivarez’s Citizen Illegal (Haymarket Books, 2018).

Genre: 
Poetry
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Tags: 
summer reading
2019
Ocean Vuong
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Penguin Press
Jill Ciment
The Body in Question
Pantheon
José Olivarez
Citizen Illegal
Haymarket Books
PBS NewsHour

How Does Your Garden Grow?

The Time Is Now
7.2.19

Enclosed within black iron gates in the Alnwick Garden in northern England is the Poison Garden, a collection of one hundred deadly plants dreamed up by the Duchess of Northumberland as a unique way to entice and educate visitors about the medicinal and toxic quality of plants. This week, browse through Encyclopedia Britannica’s list of world’s deadliest plants and select one to read and think more deeply upon. Write a poem inspired by the unique capabilities of the plant, meditating on both its superficial characteristics and its potential to heal, harm, or do both.

Gay Boys and the Bridges Who Love Them

Caption: 

“It is not what drove your body here like a stolen car. / why you abandoned it on this unreasonable ledge....” This Button Poetry video features sam sax’s poem “Gay Boys & the Bridges Who Love Them” from his second collection, Bury It (Wesleyan University Press, 2018), and is directed by Seth Moore and Cole Smothers with choreography by Matthew Bovee and Sarah Adam.

Genre: 
Poetry
Tags: 
sam sax
Gay Boys & the Bridges Who Love Them
Button Poetry
video poem
Bury It
Wesleyan University Press
2018
2019

Poets on How They Got Started

Caption: 

“When I did begin to make connections with poets, everything opened up for me,” says the late Holly Prado in this Poetry.LA video interviewing noted Southern California poets, including William Archila, Chiwan Choi, Marcia de la O, and Douglas Kearney, on how they got started in their writing careers. Prado died at the age of eighty-one on June 14, 2019.

Genre: 
Poetry
Tags: 
Holly Prado
William Archila
Chiwan Choi
Marcia de la O
Douglas Kearney
Poetry.LA interview series
in memoriam

In the Beginning

The Time Is Now
6.25.19

Who were you when you first fell in love with writing? In “Be Bold,” Rigoberto González’s profile of Ocean Vuong in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, Vuong describes the importance of consistently reminding himself of who he was when he first discovered his passion for writing, explaining, “I bring him to the present, not the person who won the awards—he has nothing to teach me.” Spend some time thinking of the person you were when you first came to writing. What were your intentions? What did writing provide that nothing else did? Write an ode to your younger, novice self inspired by the emotions and intentions that still excite you.

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