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“Still winter. Snowing, still. Can it even be called action, this / patience…” Chen Chen reads from his debut poetry collection, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), and discusses his writing with Lisa Grove for the Poetry.LA series. Chen is featured in “The Whole Self: Our Thirteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
For PBS NewsHour, U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith recommends recent poetry titles, including Look (Graywolf Press, 2016) by Solmaz Sharif, who was featured in “Shadows of Words: Our Twelfth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in Poets & Writers Magazine, and Lessons on Expulsion (Graywolf Press, 2017) by Erika L. Sanchez, who was profiled in “First” by Rigoberto González in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
An ekphrastic poem reflects on a work of art. “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” written by John Keats in 1819 is a well-known example of this poetic tradition. But as the nature of art changes over time, so too does the nature of ekphrastic poetry. A more recent example, “BBHMM” by Tiana Clark, engages with a music video by Rihanna. This week, choose a piece of art from the digital age that speaks to you, and try speaking back to it in the form of a poem. Your subject could be a photograph, film, or television show. Or it could be even more unexpected: a podcast, a commercial, even a tweet or a meme.
Dan Chiasson’s favorite poetry of 2017; the criticism and poetry of Fred Moten; the Christmas letters of J. R. R. Tolkein; and other news.
The Foundation of Contemporary Arts (FCA) has announced the new C. D. Wright Award for Poetry, an annual prize of $40,000 given to a poet over the age of fifty whose work “exemplifies Wright’s vibrant lyricism, seriousness, and striking originality."
The award, made possible through a $1 million gift from artists Ellsworth Kelly and Jack Shear, honors the memory of C. D. Wright, who died in 2016 at age sixty-seven. Wright received an FCA Grant in 1999, and went on to receive a MacArthur “Genius” Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Prize, among other accolades.
Of the prize, Wright’s husband, the poet Forrest Gander, said, “I’ve known that she was of signal importance to poets around the world—the first tribute/memorial organized for C. D. was in Stockholm—but the fact of this award coming from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, an advocate for all arts, that means the most to me.”
The C. D. Wright Award will be administered through the FCA’s nomination-based Grants to Artists program, which provides unrestricted cash awards to individuals in all artistic disciplines. Experimental poet Lisa Robertson will be the recipient of the inaugural award. Poets Tonya Foster and Peter Gizzi, the 2018 poetry advisors to FCA’s selection process, noted, “[Robertson’s] poems are compelling reads and never stint on intellection. They please as they muse and weave various affective philosophical speech acts.”
Founded in 1963 by artists Jasper Johns and John Cage, the Foundation of Contemporary Arts’ mission is to “encourage, sponsor, and promote innovative work in the arts” through its seven annual grant programs for individuals, groups, and organizations. Visit the website for more information.
Adrian Matejka reads “Battle Royale,” “Prize Fighter,” and other poems from his third collection, The Big Smoke (Penguin Books, 2013), which focus on the life of Jack Johnson, the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion. Matejka is the new poet laureate of Indiana, succeeding Shari Wagner.
James Patterson awards $350,000 in holiday bonuses to booksellers; Hanif Abdurraqib on the critic’s role; Rosmarie Waldrop closes Burning Deck press; and other news.
The anthology Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence (Beacon Press, 2017), coedited by poets Brian Clements, Alexandra Teague, and Dean Rader, was published this month coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In “Bullets Into Bells” by Maya Popa in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, the editors discuss the impact of having each poem paired with an essay response by an activist, politician, or survivor. Taking a cue from the anthology's structure, write a poem as a personal meditation or response to a nonfiction piece or news report covering a specific event from 2017.
In this short film, Eve L. Ewing talks about her writing process and reads one of her poems for AIR Serenbe, the nonprofit artist residency program of the Serenbe Institute in Georgia. Ewing is the author of Electric Arches (Haymarket Books, 2017) and is featured in “The Whole Self: Our Thirteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Best book covers of the year; women on the books that made them feminists; Bette Howland has died; and other news.
