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In this Poets & Writers event, 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize winner Fady Joudah reads a selection of poems, including from his National Book Award–nominated collection, [...] (Milkweed Editions, 2024), and joins Pádraig Ó Tuama for a conversation about his work and life as a poet.
In a recent piece published on Literary Hub highlighting responses from writers and editors on their appreciation for The Chicago Manual of Style, book editor Barbara Clark muses on the poetry found within the guidebook. “When I looked up something in the manual, I saw poems in their purest form. Open to a page at random, and find a poem there,” says Clark. “Fused participles! Who can imagine such a thing?” Taking inspiration from grammar-related terms and phrases, compose a poem that plays with an open interpretation of the words involved, bringing these concepts beyond language usage and into a more personal or philosophical context. Can you locate a sort of soul or lyrical beauty within organization and categorization?
“My writing is intimate and personal, but it’s also attempting to broaden the scope of what intimacy can be.” In this short video, Hanif Abdurraqib, a recipient of the 2024 Windham Campbell Prize in nonfiction, speaks about how writing about the things he loves has guided his work.
In this Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event at Books Are Magic, the Institute of American Indian Arts presents readings by students, alumni, and faculty of the program, including program director Deborah Jackson Taffa, m.s. RedCherries, Lily Philpott, and Julianne Warren.
In this virtual event, Banned Books Week honorary chair and award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay joins youth honorary chair Julia Garnett, a student activist who fought book bans in her home state of Tennessee, for a conversation about advocacy and fighting censorship.
“Censors never go after books unless kids already like them.” In this 2011 video for Banned Books Week, frequently censored author Judy Blume speaks about the negative effect that book banning has on children.
Wim Wenders’s 2023 Oscar-nominated film Perfect Days follows the life of a man named Hirayama, who cleans public toilets in Tokyo for work. Hirayama adheres to routines in his daily activities, waking to the sound of someone sweeping outside, brushing his teeth, misting his plants, buying a coffee from the vending machine outside of his apartment, playing cassette tapes on his commute, and taking photos with film cameras while on his lunch break. His work tasks are completed with integrity, even using a jerry-rigged mirror to check the undersides of the toilets he cleans. The character speaks very little and the focus remains on the simple beauty of his everyday experiences. Write a poem that chronicles one day in your life, encapsulating both mundane routine and beauty beheld. Consider playing with repetition, line breaks, and spacing, to reflect the regular and irregular rhythms of your day.
In this event from the 2024 Eric Williams Memorial Lecture, Danez Smith reads from their work and discusses the poetics of resistance and rebellion with Jennifer M. Wilks, director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
In the four lines of the poem “Quiet Night Thoughts” by Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai, the speaker expresses a sentiment of longing for home, brought on by the somber imagery of moonlight shining in through a bedroom window. In celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival, an occasion for gatherings to gaze at the full moon that leads up to the autumnal equinox, write a poem that uses the moon as a symbol of unity to reflect on the desire to reunite with loved ones—whether they be relatives near or far, or your chosen family. As you gaze at the moon in all its luminosity, roundness, and fullness, what emotions arise surrounding social harmony or disharmony?
In this Poetry.LA video, Lynne Thompson, author most recently of Blue on a Blue Palette (BOA Editions, 2024), and Séamus Isaac Fey, author of the debut collection, decompose (Not a Cult, 2024), read from their work and speak about playing with poetic form and organizing poetry manuscripts.
