Bloomsday, John Grisham’s Thriller About the Literary World, and More
Book industry sales fell in 2016; the canonical status of Virginia Woolf; Milkweed Editions launches poetry prize to honor late Max Ritvo; and other news.
Genre: Poetry
Man Booker International Prize Announced, Climate Fiction, and More
British kids coin more than a hundred Trump-related words; the many adaptations and influences of Orwell’s 1984; Tommy Pico talks poetry and podcasting; and other news.
Tracy K. Smith Named U.S. Poet Laureate
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has named Tracy K. Smith the next poet laureate of the United States.
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Life on Mars
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"My interest in science fiction was really based in what now seems like a very kitschy futuristic aesthetic—an image of the future from about forty years ago." Poet Tracy K. Smith discusses how she conducted research for her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011). Smith, whose new book, the memoir Ordinary Light, is forthcoming from Knopf, is featured in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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Bao Phi
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“I’m aware of the rules, but part of what makes you an artist is how you deviate from those rules, and that’s all about play.” Bao Phi, whose poetry collection Thousand Star Hotel (Coffee House Press, 2017) is in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about the importance of reading, writing, drawing, and playing to engage the imagination.
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Tracy K. Smith Named U.S. Poet Laureate, Rebuilding the Mosul Library, and More
Victor LaValle on the value of horror writing; artist Ekaterina Panikanova makes large-scale ink paintings on vintage books; the importance of literary and political criticism for a healthy democracy; and other news.
Wade in the Water
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“Is this love the trouble you promised?” Tracy K. Smith, who has been named the twenty-second poet laureate of the United States, reads her poem “Wade in the Water,” which will be published in a poetry collection in 2018.
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Jar by Raven Jackson
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“the sky unbearable / red / hungry / as a skinless hook...” Raven Jackson reads “jar” from her chapbook, little violences (CutBank, 2017), in this short film by Felipe Vara de Rey.
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Tracy K. Smith
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“In my own writing, I feel safest when I’m farthest from what I know.” Tracy K. Smith reads “Digging” by Seamus Heney, the poem she feels “invited her to start writing poetry,” and from “My God, It’s Full of Stars,” a poem she wrote about her father. This video, part of the P.O.P. series, was shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets.
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Whitman, Alabama
A video series explores ideas of America and identity by featuring people from across the state of Alabama reading stanzas from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”
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