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“The book itself is a meditation about growing up between an immigrant life and a queer life, between countries and between different kinds of kinship systems.” Gala Mukomolova discusses her debut collection, Without Protection (Coffee House Press, 2019), and reads her poem “X” in this installment of the Ours Poetica series, sponsored by Complexly and the Poetry Foundation.
In this recorded event, Terrance Hayes, Claudia Rankine, and Ocean Vuong, acclaimed authors and professors at New York University’s Creative Writing Program, read from their work and participate in a conversation together for a packed audience at NYU Skirball. Rankine is the recipient of the 2014 Jackson Poetry Prize.
Looking to publish your poetry collection? Try sending it to Howling Bird Press for a shot at a prize of $2,500 and publication.
Using only the online submission system, submit a manuscript of 48 to 72 pages with a $25 entry fee by August 21. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Howling Bird Press is the publishing house of the creative writing MFA program of Augsburg University in Minneapolis, where it is staffed by graduate students enrolled in the program’s publishing concentration. The press’s annual book prize alternates genres each year, awarding fiction and nonfiction manuscripts in addition to poetry. In 2019, Lisa Van Orman Hadley won the Howling Bird Press Fiction Prize for her novel, Irreversible Things, which “follows three decades in the life of author-qua-narrator Lisa and her charismatic Mormon family, from childhood to puberty to adulthood.” In 2018, KateLynn Hibbard won the Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize for her poetry collection Simples, which “transports us back in time to search out the remedies and inner strength necessary to survive a hardscrabble life on the frontier plains.”
Watch the trailer for The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, a seven-part Amazon Prime series adapted from the best-selling 2018 novel of the same name by Holly Ringland. Directed by Glendyn Ivin, the series stars Sigourney Weaver and Alycia Debnam-Carey.
Last weekend the highly anticipated summer blockbuster film Barbie premiered. Directed by Greta Gerwig, the film has already earned praise for the attention to detail paid in the costumes, playhouses, and collector’s items, conjuring memories for many of their time spent playing with the iconic doll. Inspired by the resurging popularity of Barbie dolls, write an essay about your favorite childhood toy. Was it one you played with in secret or with friends? If you still have the toy, what has made you hold on to it? If you gave it away, was that a difficult process for you?
In this Poetry.LA interview, Lee Herrick speaks with Lynne Thompson about his appointment as California’s tenth poet laureate and reads a selection of poems from his books, including his latest collection, Scar and Flower (Word Poetry Press, 2019).
Films and TV shows are known for their memorable theme songs, but music can be a powerful tool for characters on the page as well. “When it comes to a specific character, I often look for a theme song that fits either their personality or some aspect of their nature,” writes Amiee Gibbs, author of the novel, The Carnivale of Curiosities (Grand Central Publishing, 2023), in her installment of our Writers Recommend series. “The Cure’s ‘Burn’ and ‘Charlotte Sometimes’ perfectly complimented two of my leads, and it felt right having the same musical artist represent and define them in my mind.” This week, pick a theme song for a character and build a story around the lyrics and music. How can a song supply mood and conflict for a character?
“Metaphors get under your skin by ghosting right past the logical mind.” In this animated TED-Ed video, poet Jane Hirshfield discusses the art and use of metaphors in our daily lives and in the works of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg.
In his poem “Self-Portrait at Twenty,” Gregory Orr demonstrates the short, personal lyric he’s known for and captures a moment in time in his life. Rather than include details about what occurred when he was twenty, Orr presents a series of stark, detailed images that create a sense of foreboding for what the year had in store for him. The poem begins with the lines: “I stood inside myself / like a dead tree or a tower.” Then, later in the poem, he writes: “Because my tongue / spoke harshly, I said: / Make it dust.” Take inspiration from Orr’s poem and write a self-portrait poem that captures what you felt at a specific age. Try to avoid revealing narrative details and instead, use your sense of imagery to allow the reader in to your state of mind.
“What I’m hoping is, ten years from now, a young Puerto Rican poet on the island or somewhere else knows that this is a possibility, that living a life with and through poetry is an honorable way of engaging with the world.” Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, the first Latino executive director and president of the Academy of American Poets, reflects on why he began writing and the importance of expanding the linguistic diversity of poetry in this PBS NewsHour interview with Jeffrey Brown.
