News

Profile: "[Layeq's] epic is also a treatise on why Afghanistan’s tribal and feudal injustices were never solved either by Marxist ideology or by Islamist militancy." (The New York Times)
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/world/asia/afghanistan-poet-Sulaiman-Layeq.html

Review: "Valéry was a perfectionist, endlessly tinkering with his poems. He’s famous for his pronouncement that a poem is never finished, only abandoned....” (Hyperallergic)
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https://hyperallergic.com/580740/the-idea-of-perfection-the-poetry-and-prose-of-paul-valery/

Interview: "That's sort of what I hope the poems do, is that they I hope they sort of wrestle with history, but also look forward." —Nate Marshall (NPR)
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https://www.npr.org/2020/08/08/900144186/in-finna-poet-nate-marshall-is-all-about-what-happens-next

Recommendations: Writers and editors from around the newsroom choose poems worth revisiting in this fraught moment. (The Atlantic)
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https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2020/08/poems-for-this-moment/615103/

Feature: "Tammi Truax, the Portsmouth poet laureate, writes a weekly poem for the city’s coronavirus newsletter, breaking up grim statistics with verse." (The New York Times)
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/portsmouth-nh-newsletter-poems.html

Education: "Simon Armitage and former children’s laureate Michael Rosen are among the top UK poets decrying the government’s decision to make poetry optional for GCSE students next year, describing it as 'a dangerous first step'." (The Guardian)
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/08/simon-armitage-poetry-gcse

Column: Nick Ripatrazone discusses new books of poetry from Eduardo C. Corral, Shane McCrae, francine j. harris, Khadijah Queen, Benjamin Garcia, & Luke Hankins. (The Millions)
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https://themillions.com/2020/08/must-read-poetry-august-2020.html

Obituary: "Until the arrival of Diane di Prima in the late 1960s, Weiss was often the only woman on the North Beach circuit, and she was the first Beat poet, man or woman, to read to the accompaniment of live jazz...." (Date Book)
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https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/art-exhibits/ruth-weiss-poet-known-as-the-mother-of-the-beats-dies-at-92

Announcement: "Ilya Kaminsky is the winner of the 2020 Levis Reading Prize for his poetry collection 'Deaf Republic.' The prize is awarded annually for the best first or second book of poetry published in the previous calendar year...." (VCU)
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https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/Ilya_Kaminsky_wins_23rd_annual_Levis_Reading_Prize_for_Deaf_Republic

History: "The Silver Age of Russian poetry is an artistic period that dates from the very late 19th century and ends in the 1920s. It implies a wide range of poets, genres and literary styles." (Russia Beyond)
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https://www.rbth.com/arts/332515-russian-poetry-silver-age