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Rita Dove reads her poem "American Smooth" at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in 2010. Her new book, Collected Poems: 1974–2004 (Norton, 2016), which is longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award, is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars / when dirt's the only animal who will sleep with you..." Aracelis Girmay reads her poem, "Kingdom Animalia," for the Page Meets Stage reading series in 2013. Her new poetry collection, The Black Maria (BOA Editions, 2016), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"How the real blues claims every inch of the hungry mouth." Tyehimba Jess reads his poem "The Harmonica Lesson" and plays harmonica for the Page Meets Stage reading series in 2010. Jess is featured in Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast, and his new poetry collection, Olio (Wave Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"For each night is a long drink in a short glass." Listen to a reading by poet Brenda Shaughnessy at the Chicago Humanities Festival in 2013. Shaughnessy is featured in Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast and her fourth poetry collection, So Much Synth (Copper Canyon Press, 2016), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Masons, when they start upon a building, / Are careful to test out the scaffolding...” The late Seamus Heaney reads his poem “Scaffolding” on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 2009.
Last night in New York City, the PEN American Center honored the recipients of the 2016 PEN Literary Awards. A selection of winners were announced in February; the winners of the following five awards were announced live at the ceremony.
Mia Alvar won the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction for her story collection, In the Country (Knopf). Helon Habila, Elizabeth McCracken, Edie Meidav, and Jess Row judged. “It is rare to find a debut of such depth and breadth, work singing with the grace of a thousand doomed lifetimes compressed into stories both luminous and empathic, populated by memorable characters facing such keenly felt challenges,” the judges wrote.
Ta-Nehisi Coates took home the $10,000 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for Art of the Essay for his critically acclaimed epistolary memoir, Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau).
The PEN Open Book Award went to Rick Barot for his third poetry collection, Chord (Sarabande Books).
Lauren Redniss won the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future (Random House).
Jean Guerrero received the inaugural PEN/FUSION emerging writers prize for her manuscript “Crux.” The $10,000 prize was established in 2015 to recognize an unpublished nonfiction manuscript by a writer under the age of thirty-five.
Meanwhile, novelist and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison was honored with the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction.
This year, PEN will confer approximately $200,000 in awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes to writers and translators. Visit PEN’s website for a complete list of the 2016 Literary Award–winners.
(Photo: Mia Alvar, Credit: Deborah Lopez)
Watch a video of the awards ceremony below:
In preparation for next week’s Poem in Your Pocket Day, find a short poem that you are especially drawn to and carry it with you, taking time to reread and reflect upon it. If you need help finding one, try the Academy of American Poets or Poets House websites. At the end of the week, write your own poem that in some way responds to your chosen poem. Next Thursday, on Poem in Your Pocket Day, add your original poem to your pocket and share it with others.
On Wednesday, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the recipients of its 2016 writing fellowships. Grants of approximately $50,000 each were awarded to twenty-two poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers in the United States and Canada on the basis of past achievement and exceptional promise.
The fellows in poetry are: Beth Bachmann of Nashville, Tennessee; Rick Barot of Tacoma, Washington; Jericho Brown of Decatur, Georgia; Stephen Burt of Belmont, Massachusetts; Cynthia Huntington of Post Mills, Vermont; Sally Keith of Washington, D.C.; James Kimbrell of Tallahassee, Florida; Deborah Landau of Brooklyn, New York; Ed Roberson of Chicago, Illinois; and Brian Turner of Orlando, Florida.
The fellows in fiction are: Jesse Ball of Chicago, Illinois; Jennifer Clement of New York, New York; Amity Gaige of West Hartford, Connecticut; Laila Lalami of Santa Monica, California; Jenny Offill of Red Hook, New York; Jess Row of New York, New York; René Steinke of Brooklyn, New York; and Melanie Rae Thon of Salt Lake City, Utah.
The fellows in nonfiction are: Adam Kirsch of New York, New York; Chris Kraus of Los Angeles, California; Amitava Kumar of Poughkeepsie, New York; Glenn Kurtz of New York, New York; Nick Laird of New York, New York; Paul Lisicky of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Amanda Petrusich of Brooklyn, New York; Robert Storr of New Haven, Connecticut; and Sarah Payne Stuart of Nobleboro, Maine.
Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Foundation, said of the 2016 class, “These artists and writers, scholars and scientists, represent the best of the best…It’s an honor to be able to support these individuals to do the work they were meant to do.”
Established in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation fellowship program has granted more than $334 million in annual awards to more than 18,000 individuals. This year, a total of 175 fellowships, including three joint fellowships, were awarded to 178 writers, artists, and scholars. For more information about the program and fellows, visit gf.org.
Bill Murray convinces Jimmy Kimmel that poetry is great and reads one of his favorite poems, "What the Mirror Said" by Lucille Clifton. Murray also speaks about his experiences with the late Jim Harrison, noting that "he was a force."
For the College of DuPage's Writers Read series, Leigh Stein shares a selection of poems inspired by her favorite reality TV shows, and from her books Dispatch From the Future (Melville House, 2012) and The Fallback Plan (Melville House, 2012).
