Poetry Daily

In a Sentimental Mood

Ivana Bodrožić (translated from the Croatian by Damir Šodan)

Jazz hid itself somewhere, it rustled its brushes cautiously, before all those christs and crosses, before all the loud sons and fathers

from the book In a Sentimental Mood / Sandorf Passage

Obituary: "Al Young, a nationally renowned novelist, essayist, screenwriter, professor & poet whom Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed as the state poet laureate in 2005, died April 17, two years after suffering a major stroke. He was 81."
(Berkeleyside)
#pdnews
https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/04/21/al-young-california-poet-laureate-berkeley-ca-dies-81

Opinion: "A poem is a timeless place, an immaterial plot of land where we can gather across generations to breathe and feel, deeply and safely." —Sindha Agha
(The New York Times)
#pdnews
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/opinion/national-poetry-month.html

Interview: "What I love about American Life in Poetry is that it presents the challenge that there is something for everyone. There is a spiritual element of poetry that takes us beyond ourselves. I want to preserve that..." (Chicago Defender)
#pdnews
https://chicagodefender.com/kwame-dawes-ph-d-and-the-importance-of-poetry-in-american-life/

Feature: Mandana Chaffa discusses twelve new & forthcoming poetry collections, including work by Raymond Antrobus, Douglas Kearney, Sonia Sanchez, Arthur Sze, June Jordan, Kaveh Akbar, and more.
(Chicago Review of Books)
#pdnews
https://chireviewofbooks.com/2021/04/19/april-is-poetry-month/

Article: "It was a hot June night in 1943, and Frances Angermayer could not sleep. So, she arose after midnight, went to her typewriter, and — in 20 minutes — wrote what was to become the most famous poem of World War II."
(The Kansas City Star)
#pdnews
https://www.kansascity.com/news/your-kcq/article250558359.html

What Sparks Poetry

Reprise

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

In Reprise, we will republish some of the most loved essays from our What Sparks Poetry series. We hope that you will find joy and illumination in revisiting these essays with us.

This week's issue: Eric Pankey on W.S. Merwin’s “When You Go Away”

Catch Up on Recent Poems

April 22, 2021

from “Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade”

Desiree C. Bailey

I am I but I won’t spill my name not here on this damned rock pushed out bloody from the bowels of the sea marketplace island where the cloud’s crest and birdsong all for sale

April 21, 2021

At Lake Merced

C. Dale Young

Some men go down to the river. I went down, instead, to the lake: the air silent and stretched tightly over it, the water unmoved and dangerously still. Some men move past such a scene without even the slightest notice of it.

April 20, 2021

Nomad Poem

Vaan Nguyen (translated from the Hebrew by Adriana X. Jacobs)

He won’t ride a shod animal. He prefers to trouble his head to stand by the road unkempt under a tree waiting how he will outlive me like a quotation.

April 19, 2021

Conor Oberst

Sean Shearer

There were woods behind my house scattered with berries I couldn’t digest. I’d curl on top of the dirt hugging the knot inside my belly and now I’m in bed kissing a pale green vein as I listen to his voice like a knife with its scar— six birds stretched across a fret board.

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