Steinbeck Heir Wins Lawsuit, Dracula Prequel, and More
Alexandra Kleeman on writing fiction; twenty-four poets on what rescinding DACA means; E. B. White’s Maine farm for sale; and other news.
Genre: Poetry
Edwidge Danticat on DACA, #MakeNovelsModern, and More
Feminist writer Kate Millett has died; Hilda Doolittle’s childhood home declared a literary landmark; John Williams’s novel Stoner to be adapted for screen; and other news.
Tiana Nobile
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“I’m primarily interested in considering the impact transnational adoption has on ideas surrounding the body, memory, and language.” Tiana Nobile talks about the themes in the manuscript of her first poetry collection, Harlow’s Monkey, and what it means to be a recipient of the 2017 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award.
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Poetry Foundation Announces 2017 Ruth Lilly Fellows
The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine have announced the recipients of the 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships. The annual awards are given to five U.S. poets between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one. Each winner receives $25,800.
(Photos from left: Fatimah Asghar, Sumita Chakraborty, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Roy G. Guzmán, Emily Jungmin Yoon)
This year’s fellows are Fatimah Asghar, Sumita Chakraborty, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Roy G. Guzmán and Emily Jungmin Yoon. Don Share, editor of Poetry magazine, said of the winners, “In a year during which some readers have asked ‘Why poetry?’ here are poets whose work not only provides a powerful answer, but demonstrates that the present—and future—of poetry have never been in such fine hands.”
Established in 1989 by Ruth Lilly, the fellowship program celebrates and encourages young poets to further their studies and writing of poetry. Visit the Poetry Foundation website for more information.
Six-Word Immigrant Memoirs, Book Doulas, and More
Writers and critics remember John Ashbery; conquering submission phobia; Gabriel Tallent on writing his debut novel, My Absolute Darling; and other news.
Remembering John Ashbery
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“Poetry comes to me out of thin air or out of my unconscious mind. It’s sort of the way dreams come to us…” In this PBS NewsHour video, Jeffrey Brown revisits a conversation with John Ashbery from 2007 in which he speaks about his life as a poet and reads from his collection Notes From the Air: Selected Later Poems (Ecco, 2007). Ashbery died on September 3, 2017 at the age of ninety.
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John Ashbery Has Died, Literary Agents in D.C., and More
Poetry Foundation announces 2017 fellowship recipients; novelist Susan Vreeland has died; Christopher Soto on political poetry versus protest poetry; and other news.
Quoth the Raven
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, / Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— / While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping…” First published almost two hundred years ago, Edgar Allan Poe’s narrative poem “The Raven” was itself partially inspired by the raven in Charles Dickens’s novel Barnaby Rudge and has gone on to spark numerous renditions, homages, and parodies. And the poem’s influence has extended far beyond literature, giving a name to an NFL team (Baltimore Ravens) and providing inspiration for a range of artists, from cartoonists (The Simpsons and Calvin and Hobbes) to musicians (Lou Reed and the Grateful Dead). Write a poem that takes its cue from an element of Poe’s verse that you are especially drawn toward. Consider its themes of loss and devotion; the extensive use of alliteration and rhyme; the “nevermore” refrain; classical, mythological, and biblical references; the question-and-answer sequencing; the symbolism of the raven; or the forebodingly dark atmosphere.
Nicole Sealey Reads for P.O.P.
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Nicole Sealey reads William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 6 and her poem “Even the Gods” from her debut collection, Ordinary Beast (Ecco, 2017), for the P.O.P series, which was was shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Sealey discusses poetry and craft with Dawn Lundy Martin in “Vagrant & Vulnerable” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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Natural Colors
Bright blue hot springs ringed by yellow and orange. Red canyons, green auroras, cloud-white ice caves, golden sand dunes. Browse through National Geographic’s slideshow of some of the most colorful places on earth, many of them naturally occurring, and take in the sights. Then, write a poem that incorporates a variety of colors, hues, and shades found in nature. Allow the images and colors to guide your poem’s thematic direction, perhaps toward an expansive meditation of the outdoors, or toward memories or associations with people in your life.
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