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In this video, Sarah Kay reads her poem “Jakarta, January” at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture in New York City. Kay is the author of No Matter the Wreckage (Write Bloody Publishing, 2016) and the forthcoming book, All Our Wild Wonder (Hachette, 2018), illustrated by Sophia Janowitz.
Fred Bass, the man who transformed the Strand Bookstore, dies; submission fees in poetry publishing; Academy of American Poets names three new chancellors; and other news.
Publishers Weekly looks at the biggest stories of 2017; Mary Jo Salter on the joys of being a poet; the language and words of 2017; and other news.
David Bowie’s son launches book club in honor of his father; Paper Darts rounds up the best book covers of 2017; the Guardian wraps up its hundred best nonfiction books of all time list; and other news.
In 1996, David Lehman gave himself the task of writing a poem a day and continued for the next two years. The best of these resulting poems became his collection The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry. In the introduction, Lehman says of his writing process: “Inspiration was not something you needed to sit and wait for. It was something that came when you invited it.” This week, instead of waiting for inspiration, try to simply reach your hand out and gather some. Write down a list of observations each day from scraps of dialogue you overhear, images you encounter, and thoughts that cross your mind. Shape your daily observations into a poem and title each one with the date until you have seven for the week.
“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.
