Genre: Poetry

The Blob

10.29.24

In early September, mysterious white blobs began washing ashore on the beaches of Newfoundland in Canada, described as sticky, spongy, and doughy. Beachcombers and scientists alike were confounded—were the blobs of animal or plant origins? Were they toxic or innocuous, or created from industrial waste? As scientists continue to collect samples and run tests on these mysterious blobs, take this period of uncertainty to write a poem about a blob: these beach blobs, a blob inspired by science fiction, an explicitly frightening or comedic blob, or perhaps an experience that simply feels blob-like. How does the slipperiness of this concept lend itself to metaphors in your poem? Consider experimenting with the shape of your text, creating a concrete, yet blobby, poem.

Mosab Abu Toha: Forest of Noise

Caption: 

“When we die, our souls leave our bodies, / take with them everything they loved.... In Gaza, our bodies and rooms get crushed. / Nothing remains for the soul.” In this Busboys and Poets event, Mosab Abu Toha reads from his collection Forest of Noise (Knopf, 2024), and discusses his recent experiences in Gaza in a conversation with Isra Chaker. An interview with Abu Toha by Destiny O. Birdsong appears in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 

Ode to the Mud in Corona Park

Caption: 

In this video for the Poetry Society of America’s Storefront Poems series, Kimiko Hahn reads her poem “Ode to the Mud in Corona Park,” which appears in her collection The Ghost Forest: New and Selected Poems (Norton, 2024). For more from Hahn, read her installation of our Ten Questions series.

Genre: 

Left Undone

10.22.24

In Rae Armantrout’s poem “Unbidden,” which appears in her collection Versed (Wesleyan University Press, 2009), the poet’s use of short lines in conjunction with enjambment contribute to a sense of disjointedness. “The ghosts swarm. / They speak as one / person. Each / loves you. Each / has left something / undone,” writes Armantrout. This week compose a poem that revolves around a feeling of inconclusiveness. For your subject matter, consider a situation or relationship from your past that feels unfinished, one that continues to haunt you with questions. Deploy enjambment strategically—splitting up specific phrases and ending lines with significantly weighted words—to create a sense of discontinuity and unknowability.

Get a Move On

10.15.24

While scientists have long known that spiders can fly across entire oceans on their silk threads by ballooning through strong wind currents, it’s only more recently that research has demonstrated their ability to travel on Earth’s electric field. Unlike humans, spiders can detect the naturally-occurring global electric field known as the ionosphere with the tiny sensory hairs on their bodies and prepare to lift off and take flight. Write a poem that focuses on modes of movement, perhaps imagining the ways in which humans have moved through space and how this has changed over time with new inventions and technology. What might be possible in the future? Try experimenting with rhythm and spacing, and explore what type of diction feels most reflective of the pacing you seek.

A. B. Spellman

Caption: 

In this Institute of Politics Policy and History video, A. B. Spellman joins a panel of poets, historians, and critics for a discussion of his contributions to literature, music, and the Black Arts Movement, and then reads a selection of poems from his new collection, Between the Night and Its Music: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

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DISQUIET International Literary Program

The 2025 DISQUIET International Literary Program, sponsored by Dzanc Books and Centro Nacional de Cultura, will be held from June 22, 2025, to July 4, 2025, at the Centro Nacional de Cultura in Lisbon, Portugal. The conference features workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as a multi-genre Writing the Luso Experience workshop, lectures, craft talks, and literary walks. The faculty includes poets Erica Dawson, Diana Khoi Nguyen, and Terri Witek; fiction writer Gabriel Bump; and fiction writer and translator Bruna Dantas Lobato.

Type: 
CONFERENCE
Ignore Event Date Field?: 
no
Event Date: 
June 22, 2025
Rolling Admissions: 
no
Application Deadline: 
December 2, 2024
Financial Aid?: 
yes
Financial Aid Application Deadline: 
January 6, 2025
Free Admission: 
no
Contact Information: 

DISQUIET International Literary Program, 610 South Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01002. 

Contact City: 
Lisbon
Country: 
PT

Studio Faire

Studio Faire offers two- or four-week residencies year-round to artists and writers, including poets, fiction writers, creative nonfiction writers, and translators, at an early 19th-century house in Nérac, France. The residency accommodates up to six visitors at a time. Residents are provided with a private work space and bedroom and two bathrooms, as well as access to a common kitchen, dining room, and garden area.

Type: 
RESIDENCY
Ignore Event Date Field?: 
yes
Event Date: 
May 27, 2025
Rolling Admissions: 
yes
Application Deadline: 
May 27, 2025
Financial Aid?: 
no
Financial Aid Application Deadline: 
May 27, 2025
Free Admission: 
no
Contact Information: 

Studio Faire, 58 Avenue Georges Clemenceau, 47600 Nérac, France. Julia Douglas, Cofounder and Residency Coordinator.

Julia Douglas
Cofounder and Residency Coordinator
Contact City: 
Nérac
Country: 
FR
Add Image: 
Studio Faire garden

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