Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:
The Boston Review features a series written by poet-teachers [2] about “the texts they return to–the poems they find themselves assigning over and over, the urgencies that recur seasonally, the arguments and inquiries they reprise with successive groups of students.” Poets Evie Shockley, Shane McCrae, DeSales Harrison, and Heather Christle have contributed their writings to the series.
As we noted yesterday in a special report [3], beloved poet and Brown University professor C. D. Wright passed away Monday evening at age sixty-seven. Many in the literary community have expressed their sympathy [4] and support through tributes to the award-winning and influential poet. [5] (New Yorker, Stranger)
Slate’s books and culture columnist comments on the resurgence of the “housewife novel, [6]” and its persistent influence despite the fact that the protagonists of such works are “universally declared boring.”
Best-selling author James Patterson just keeps on donating, recently giving £10,000 to two U.K. bookshops [7] that had been hit with flooding earlier in December. (Guardian)
On Thursday, hundreds of writers around the world will take part in coordinated readings of the poetry of Palestinian writer Ashraf Fayadh [8], whose death sentence appeal is set for next week. The readings of Fayadh’s poetry at 122 events in forty-four countries are part of a campaign organized by the International Literature Festival Berlin, which calls on the U.K and U.S. governments to halt his beheading, “and to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to improve its human rights record.” (Guardian)
Buzz Books, the free app that offers digital samples [9] of upcoming buzzed-about books on your smart phone or tablet, has published its Spring/Summer 2016 list of adult and young adult pre-publication titles. (PR Newswire)
Need some new poetry to keep you warm this month? The Washington Post lists the best poetry books released in January [10], including Camille Rankine’s Incorrect Merciful Impulses (Copper Canyon), Martín Espada’s Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (Norton), and Larry Levis’s The Darkeing Trapeze: Last Poems (Graywolf).