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“Who knew our pudgy American dream was so combustible?” Patricia Smith reads a poem from her seventh poetry collection, Incendiary Art (TriQuarterly Books, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Twenty-four senators sign letter to White House to defend the NEA and NEH; the risks of depicting family members in fiction; the New York Times through the ages; and other news.
PEN America has announced the winners of its annual literary awards. The 2017 awards will confer more than $300,000 to poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, translators, and playwrights.
Here are a few of this year’s winners:
Natalie Scenters-Zapico won the $5,000 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry for her poetry collection The Verging Cities (Colorado State University). Camille Dungy, Ada Limón, and Patrick Phillips judged.
Helen Oyeyemi won the $5,000 PEN Open Book Award for her story collection What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (Riverhead). Ishmael Beah, Major Jackson, and Bich Minh Nguyen judged.
Matthew Desmond won the $10,000 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction for Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Crown). Emily Anthes, Amy Ellis Nutt, Robin Marantz Henig, and Emma Marris judged.
Aleksandar Hemon won the $10,000 PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History for How Did You Get Here?: Tales of Displacement. Gaiutra Bahadur, Helen Epstein, and Dan Kennedy judged.
Simon Armitage won the $3,000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for his translation from the Middle English of the Pearl Poet’s Pearl: A New Verse Translation (Liveright). Jennifer Grotz, Kyoo Lee, and Rowan Ricardo Phillips judged.
Tess Lewis won the $3,000 PEN Translation Prize for her translation from the German of Maja Haderlap’s novel Angel of Oblivion (Archipelago). Mara Faye Lethem, Jeremy Tiang, Elizabeth Lowe, Annie Tucker, and Dennis Washburn judged.
For a complete list of winners, visit the PEN website.
Winners of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay will be announced live at the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on March 27 at the New School in New York City. Actor and comedian Aasif Mandvi will host this year’s ceremony.
Two new Joan Didion notebooks on the American South and West; the politics of retelling myths; finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes announced; and other news.
Morgan Parker reads a selection of poems including “Heaven Be a Xanax,” “Hottentot Venus,” and “Slouching Toward Beyoncé” from her second poetry collection, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé (Tin House Books, 2017), with musical accompaniment by David Cieri. Parker’s book is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
A survey of writing manuals; a new study suggests human brains are hardwired to appreciate poetry; a big-data approach to Shakespeare; and other news.
Dean Rader reads his poem inspired by Leilani Bustamante’s painting “Lady Moore” and “Self-Portrait in Place” for a Quiet Lightning reading series event. Rader’s most recent collection, Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The 2020 Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Spring in New Orleans Writing Retreat was held from March 19 to March 22 at the Pelham Hotel, a five-minute walk from the French Quarter. The retreat featured multi-genre and publishing workshops, craft seminars, and time to work for writers including poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers. The faculty included poetry and fiction writers Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai, and fiction and nonfiction writer Stephen Aubrey. The cost of the retreat was $1,650, which included tuition, lodging, and breakfasts.
Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Spring in New Orleans Writing Retreat, Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, Inc., P.O. Box 380448, Cambridge, MA 02138. (917) 830-4748. Rita Banerjee, Executive Creative Director.
Tom Hanks’s debut story collection; Dana Gioia defends the importance of the NEA; PEN America announces 2017 festival will focus on “Gender and Power”; and other news.
Writing an unsentimental love poem can be one of the more difficult endeavors a poet can take on, whether the subject of that poem is a lover, a family member, or friend. Taking inspiration from the popular film 10 Things I Hate About You, a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, write an ode to the aspects of a loved one that downright irk you. How might you use a form of repetition in your poem—like an anaphora or refrain—to build tension and showcase either the unlikable or admirable aspects of this person?
