Poetry Daily

Letter to Capitol Hill

We did not want to get closer but let history hiss at our backs

Jennifer Chang

from the book An Authentic Life / Copper Canyon Press

Essay: "Epics have often shored up empires."
(The Nation)
#pdnews

Why Is the Right Obsessed With Epic Poetry?

From Elon Musk to Jordan Peterson, a certain strand of conservatism has recruited the poetry of Homer and Dante in their culture war.

www.thenation.com

Interview: "For me a good poem has to have charm. That is, charm in the deeper sense of that word — magic."
(Post and Courier)
#pdnews

A Q&A with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Ted Kooser

Ted Kooser, of Garland, Neb., served two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2005.

www.postandcourier.com

Essay: "[Loy] has been grouped with the futurists, Dadaists, surrealists, and feminists and described as a poet, a painter, a critic, a model, and an art dealer. The woman was all of those things and none of them."
(LARB)
#pdnews

Complexity as a Liberatory Practice | Los Angeles Review of Books

Tara Anne Dalbow explores artist-poet Mina Loy’s thrilling embrace of contradiction.

lareviewofbooks.org

Report: "It’s a little weird that Nashville doesn’t have a poet laureate."
(Nashville Scene)
#pdnews

Despite a Thriving Literary Scene, Nashville Lacks a Poet Laureate

Asking poets about what an established laureate could bring to the city

www.nashvillescene.com

Essay: "Let’s talk about love. That’s what the people in this poem seem to be doing."
(NYT)
#pdnews

Will You Fall in Love With This Poem? I Did.

“Romantic Poet,” by Diane Seuss, is one of the best things that our critic A.O. Scott read (and reread) this year.

www.nytimes.com

Profile: "'Unlike any woman in my family or anyone I’d ever actually known, I was going to become — something, anything, whatever that meant,' Hettie Jones once wrote."
(NYT)
#pdnews

Hettie Jones Helped Kickstart New York’s Beat Scene

Despite her husband's betrayal, she recreated herself as the writer she always was.

www.nytimes.com

Essay: "Late in 1933, Dylan Thomas started writing a new short story."
(LitHub)
#pdnews

“It Will Be One of the Most Ghastly Short Stories Ever Written.” When Dylan Thomas Tried to Get...

Late in 1933, Dylan Thomas started writing a new short story. “The theme of the story I dreamed in a nightma...

lithub.com

Interview: "Growing up, I didn’t really feel like capital 'P' Poetry was something that could be a part of my life."
(The Chicago Blog)
#pdnews
https://pressblog.uchicago.edu/2024/12/21/read-an-interview-with-poet-and-translator-aaron-coleman.html

Announcement: "The final National Book Critics Circle Awards genre longlist has arrived."
(People)
#pdnews

National Book Critics Circle Awards Announces First-Ever Longlist for Poetry

The National Book Critic Circle Awards has announced their poetry longlist. From Dec. 16 to Dec. 19, the NBCC sh...

people.com

Interview: "All of my speakers are isolated women who desperately want to feel like God could speak to them, or that God is paying attention to them in the way they’ve read that God has spoken to and paid attention to men."
(MACALESTER)
#pdnews

English professor remakes women of faith in debut poetry collection - News

In Theophanies, Professor Sarah Ghazal Ali explores what it means to have a woman's body when in Scripture that ...

www.macalester.edu

What Sparks Poetry

Drafts

In our series Drafts, we invite poets to explore strategies for writing and rewriting the poem, its many lives, before (and even after) it is published.

This week's issue: Jennifer Chang on Letter to Capitol Hill

Catch Up on Recent Poems

January 12, 2025

Someone Is the Water

Austin Araujo

I am alone but for this vein splitting the earth open

January 11, 2025

Where/Did You Sleep Last Night

Brody Parrish Craig

trail sounds lure what none thought edible

January 10, 2025

The War Mule’s Account

Ishion Hutchinson

Now, my business is to cart the dead from both sides of the Scamander River.

January 9, 2025

Historical Material 2020

Lena Tsykynovska

There is a story I wish I could tell everyone, not just you

January 8, 2025

Vice Squad

Armen Davoudian

When the black van pulled over, my hand was in yours. They thought I was your lover: my hand was in yours.

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

Phillip B. Williams