Poetry Daily

Blue variations

Lubna Safi

Blue is the blue of distance, "the ink that I use is the blue blood of the swan" (Cocteau), of the sea, of the faraway, a discriminating blue, of your eyes, of memory...

from the book Your Blue and the Quiet Lament / Texas Tech University Press

Report: "After 12 years of publishing marginalized BIPOC and queer writers, the nonprofit Nomadic Press announced on Jan. 30 that it will be closing."
(KQED)
#pdnews

Nomadic Press, a â€˜Chosen Family‘ For Queer and BIPOC Writers, Closes Up Shop

The Oakland publisher has become an invaluable hub for marginalized authors over the last 12 years â€” but founders say it's no longer sustainable.

www.kqed.org

Essay: Elisa Gabbert writes on the beginnings of poems.
(NYT)
#pdnews
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/books/review/as-wallace-stevens-once-put-it-hi.html

Conversation: "I wanted to write a book about looking at the world."—Alex Dimitrov
(McSweeney's)
#pdnews

Short Conversations with Poets: Alex Dimitrov

The poetry of Alex Dimitrov stays in the present. It’s the essence of contemporary. A living voice, an urban...

www.mcsweeneys.net

Obituary: "Linda Pastan, whose elegantly simple poems found beauty and, sometimes, pain in the ordinary sights and moments of life, died on Jan. 30 at her home in Chevy Chase, Md. She was 90."
(NYT)
#pdnews
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/books/linda-pastan-dead.html

Profile: Carmen Maria Machado speaks with Poet Laureate Ada Limón.
(Elle)
#pdnews

Can Poetry Heal a Broken World?

Ada Limón, the first Latina poet laureate, believes that the power of words can help us navigate this time of crisis.

www.elle.com

Review: "For Andrew Fitzsimons, translating Matsuo Basho’s haiku was both a physical and internal journey."
(Japan Times)
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Matsuo Basho's complete works reveal the sensuality and innovation of a master poet

Andrew Fitzsimons offers carefully considered translations of the poet’s works, including his famous haiku about a...

www.japantimes.co.jp

Announcement: The National Book Critics Circle has announced the finalists for its 2022 awards.
(NBCC)
#pdnews

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE ANNOUNCES FINALISTS FOR PUBLISHING YEAR 2022 - National Book Critics Circle

NBCC launches Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize and NBCC Service Award; Joy Harjo, City Lights receive lifetim...

www.bookcritics.org

Report: "[Limón's] poem, to be released in the coming months, will be engraved on the Europa Clipper spacecraft. It will travel 1.8 billion miles..."
(LOC Newsroom)
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A Voice Among the Stars: Poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón Will Ride to Europa on NASA Spacecraft

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, who is known for work that explores the human connection to the natural world, is...

newsroom.loc.gov

Report: "Even the bathroom is devoted to literature, with black-and-white photographs of writers covering the ceiling and available wall space."
(Curbed)
#pdnews

A Writer’s Book-Stuffed Greenwich Village Studio

A photo of Rimbaud looks down from the bathroom ceiling.

www.curbed.com

Review: "...the poet, fiction writer, and translator John Keene has gradually and unassumingly established himself as one of the preeminent writers of experimental literature in English."
(Chicago Review)
#pdnews

On John Keene’s Punks

By Peter Myers

www.chicagoreview.org

What Sparks Poetry

Translation

What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature in which we invite poets to explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems.

In our series focused on Translation, we invite poet-translators to share seminal experiences in their practices, bringing poems from one language into another. How does the work of translating feel essential to the writing of one’s own poetry? Our contributors reflect on inspiring moments as intricate as a grammatical quirk and as wide-ranging as the history or politics of another place.

This week's issue: Olivia E. Sears on Ardengo Soffici’s “Rainbow”

Catch Up on Recent Poems

February 7, 2023

A toast to something beautiful flapping in the wind

J. Hope Stein

drop, I tell time by counting teeth-marks around the crooked nipple.

February 6, 2023

Rainbow

Ardengo Soffici (translated from the Italian by Olivia E. Sears)

The day sinks into the scarlet basin of summer And there are no more words For that bridge of fire and jewels Youth you’ll pass like the end of every play Tant pis Never mind I’ll make myself a magnificent suit out of old posters

February 5, 2023

Gentle or Not

Laura Cresté

I tend my own but cheat, buy them full-grown from the nursery, leaves round as saucers, in the way of daughters fearing their mothers like them less each year we grow older.

February 4, 2023

Recidivism

Laura Minor

Everyone wants someone to crawl back to; everyone wants to forgive the rose for dying. You used to make everyone jealous of my laughter, turned every moment vignette, borderless and fading.

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B&W Photo of Dana Levin by B.A. Van Sise — Dana Levin

Phillip B. Williams