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“The loneliest people have the earth to love / And not one friend their own age.” Jericho Brown reads his poem “Labor,” which appears in his second poetry collection, The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), in this video for the Dear Poet series, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.
In “Leaving the Psychologist: An Abecedarian Ekphrastic,” published in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, Grisel Y. Acosta combines two poetic forms—the abecedarian, in which the first letter of each line follows alphabetical order, and the ekphrastic, which describes or responds to a work of visual art. In Acosta’s poem, she uses a 1960 painting by Spanish Mexican Surrealist artist Remedios Varo titled “Mujer saliendo del psicoanalista” as inspiration: “another face has sprouted in my chest / beastly, that’s me, a super freak / cavorting with your skull in my grasp….” Inspired by Acosta’s creation of combined forms, write your own abecedarian ekphrastic poem. Search for an image of a painting or other work of visual art that invokes a feeling of expansiveness or cyclicality. Allow this to buoy your path from A to Z.
“If only the sky were kind enough to lend me his blue coat.” In this video, Yuki Tanaka reads an excerpt from the title poem of his debut collection, Chronicle of Drifting (Copper Canyon Press, 2025), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“I was doing nine years in prison, and poems became my way to see the world.” In this Common Read event hosted by the Sims Memorial Library at Southeastern Louisiana University, Reginald Dwayne Betts, author of Felon (Norton, 2020), answers questions from the audience and presents a lecture and reading introduced by Louisiana poet laureate Alison Pelegrin.
In this Villanova University Literary Festival event, Victoria Chang reads from her poetry collections Obit (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) and With My Back to the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), and speaks about her ekphrastic poems and the power of writing in conversation with other artists and people in her life.
From the wildflowers of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the white lilies of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, flowers have played a significant role in literature and are symbolic in many cultures. Floriography is known as the “language of flowers” and is a means of expressing emotion through the use of flowers—a method of discreet communication that has existed for millennia and saw heightened popularity during the Victorian era. Whether depicted in a painting, presented as a gift, used as commemorative decor, or worn as an accessory, a flower can symbolize gratitude, love, remembrance, trust, good health, or even danger. Spend some time looking into the language of flowers and write a poem that deploys floriography in some way, perhaps to express something you’ve kept secret until now.
Jehanne Dubrow encourages writers to provide varied points of entry into books on trauma to give readers breathing room and keep them engaged.
In this Lambda Literary video, Rob Macaisa Colgate reads “History of Display,” which appears in his debut poetry collection, Hardly Creatures (Tin House Books, 2025). The collection is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The 2025 Poets on the Coast: A Weekend Retreat for Women will be held from September 5 to September 7 at the La Conner Inn in La Conner, Washington. The retreat features poetry workshops and one-on-one mentoring with faculty. The faculty includes poets Elizabeth Bradfield, Susan Landgraf, and Susan Rich. Tuition, which does not include lodging or meals, is $579 until May 31 or $589 thereafter, until August 15. Lodging is available at the conference hotel at a nightly rate of $169 to $199. A limited number of scholarships are available. Registration is first come, first served.
Poets on the Coast: A Weekend Retreat for Women, P.O. Box 16037, Seattle, WA 98116. (360) 466-3101.
The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, sponsored by Mass Poetry, will be held from May 30 to June 1 at several venues throughout Salem, Massachusetts, including the House of the Seven Gables, Old Town Hall, the Peabody Essex Museum, and St. Peter’s Church. Programming includes headline readings, workshops, panels, a small press fair, multimedia events, open mics, and live performances. Participating poets include Diannely Antigua, Marilyn Chin, Ross Gay, Saeed Jones, Danez Smith, and Felicia Zamora.
Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Mass Poetry, c/o Grubstreet, 50 Liberty Drive, Suite 500, Boston, MA 02210. M.P. Carver, Festival Director.
