The Republic of Poetry is divided into three parts. The first is about Chile: history, coup, repression, resistance. The second is a series of elegies for poets and other artists. The third is about the creative process itself, the alchemy that makes art out of event ( Read more... )

In 2011, Nikky Finney won the National Book Award for Head Off and Split (from which I posted a poem a couple of years back). Someone recently pointed me to a video of her acceptance speech for the award, which I had never seen -- and which I can now highly recommend ( Read more... )

Hat tip to
( Read more... )

Found via Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database. From the site: "Minal Hajratwala is a poet, publisher, author, and writing coach/founder of Write Like a Unicorn. Her collection Bountiful Instructions for Enlightenment was published in 2014 by The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective. Her nonfiction epic Leaving India: My ( Read more... )

This poem about Boston's Old South Meeting House (Wikipedia) was commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Imagine Your Parks grant.

Ignite the fire in us.

Old South Meeting HouseWe draw breath from brick ( Read more... )

Because I can't say it better, I will steal from the back of the book: Natasha Trethewey describes Hum as "concerned with what's beneath the surfaces of things-the unseen that eats away at us or does the work of sustaining us," "a meditation on the machinery of living, an extended ode to sound and silence ( Read more... )

I think I got this one from
( Read more... )

Trances of the Blast is interesting. I'm not sure I like it, exactly, but it's interesting.

Women in Labor

Women who lie alone at midnight
because there is no one else to lie to

Women who lie alone at midnight
at noon in the laundromat
destroying their own socks

Women who lie alone at midnight:
Hans Brinker, or The Silver SkatesWomen who lie ( Read more... )

I'd forgotten how much I love this one until it was brought back to my attention earlier today.

The House Was Quiet on a Winter AfternoonSomeone was reading in the back ( Read more... )

I Don't Miss ItBut sometimes I forget where I am ( Read more... )