Matthew Rohrer
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The author of seven poetry collections, including Destroyer and Preserver (Wave Books, 2011), Matthew Rohrer reads "Over the Emperor City" as part of the Brooklyn Poets Reading Series at Studio 10 in Brooklyn.
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Genre: Poetry
Students Serve as Poet Ambassadors
This April, during National Poetry Month, and through September, five high school students will work to promote poetry across the country.
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Record Your Rime
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In November 2013 the Brooklyn Academy of Music put out an open call for readings of an excerpt from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in collaboration with the Poetry Foundation's Record-a-Poem project. This clip features a sampling of the many voices that participated. You can listen to the full audio submissions on SoundCloud.
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Ekphrasis
W. H. Auden’s poem “Musée des Beaux Arts" draws inspiration from Pieter Bruegel's painting Landscape With the Fall of Icarus. Many poets have found inspiration in other media: Painting, sculpture, even memorials appear in poems. This week, respond to a piece of visual art in verse. You can describe the work in detail, or the source of your inspiration can be subtly channeled into your poem. Similarly, you can choose to title your poem after the artwork or find a new title.
The Smitten Author
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“It’s okay to love your writing. Just don’t love your writing.” This rather quirky clip acknowledges the inevitable approach of the year’s most saccharine holiday, Valentine’s Day.
Maxine Kumin
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The award-winning poet and former poet laureate is seen here reading three poems at the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival. Kumin passed away on February 6 at the age of eighty-eight.
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Anne Waldman
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The author most recently of Gossamurmur (Penguin, 2013) reads from "Manatee/Humanity" as part of Poet-to-Poet, an educational project from the Academy of American Poets for National Poetry Month 2014.
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Carolyn Forché
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PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown recently talked with Carolyn Forché, whose new anthology, Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English 1500-2001, published last month by W.W. Norton, contains the work of poets who have witnessed war, imprisonment, torture, and slavery. Forché calls the collection an "outcry of the soul."
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Laughter
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter,” wrote E. E. Cummings. Timing is important both in comedy and in poetry. Though poets often engage with serious subjects, a well-placed moment of levity can make a poem even more poignant. This week, try to incorporate humor in your own writing. It can be a funny image, a pun, or a parody. See how this moment affects the tone of your poem, or how it leads you in a new, unexpected direction.
The Watcher of Vowels
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"How lovely it is to write with all these vowels." The latest short film from Motionpoems features Robert Bly's poem "The Watcher of Vowels," with design and animation by Matt Van Ekeren.
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