News Archive

Is it Shakespeare? Maybe, maybe not.

"I still believe that it is . . . possible to discover what one feels, and that until that happens one is not quite alive."—Amy Clampitt

New York Public Library purchases Burroughs archive.

San Mateo poet plans to impeach Bush.

Love besotted poetry from 11th century Persia.

Victoria joins the Poet Laureate craze.

Inspired by a book-length poem, an "operatic fantasia on themes of emotional fragmentation."

"In my godless house, poems were the closest thing we came to sacred speech."

"There is currently no dominant method that critics use to investigate poems."

Slam poet to open for Common.

Muldoon to head Princeton arts center.

Poet shares prize with astronaut, queen, and foxy anchorman.

The New York Philharmonic and Czeslaw Milosz.

In Japan, allergy victims react with haiku.

An association for "poetry and storytelling societies" in Botswana.

Soldier writes poetry instead of playing cards.

A review of the new collection of Elizabeth Bishop fragments.

They want a poet laureate, now.

Jessica Simpson writes poems about life after Nick. Will she give him royalties so he doesn't have to do infomercials for exercise machines?

Jack Gilbert wins National Book Critics Circle Award.

Spammers and poetry: don't write "drug" or "pimp", write "hawk" or "seize."

Ivor Cutler, cult poet and composer, dies.

Ethiopia's Poet Laureate laid to rest.

AWP underway in Austin.

Gordon Parks, filmmaker, activist, poet, dies.

Poetry evangelist.

A beloved teacher and poet who met a violent end.

Beowulf hits the big screen.

“I said I was going to be a great poet, because you’re arrogant as a young fella. But you have to be a bit arrogant to take it on.”—Greg Delanty

Poem finished after 27 years.

Auction of beat poets papers and first editions raise $225,000 for homeless publisher.

A novel built around Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s chamber pot.

The campaign to make Jack Kerouac a face on a postage stamp.

“If it’s glib talk or easy irony you want, or a soothing metaphysical cocktail that promises redemption without pain, hers is not the poetry for you.”—Nicholas Christopher on Louise Gluck

Boy who died is still bestselling poet.

“Any line might fly apart in multiple, contradictory directions simultaneously.” Robert Polito on James Merrill

Seven-year-old creates a stir with her poem entitled "White Nationalism Put U In Bondage." Sharpton intervenes.

South African president Thabo Mbeki lets the literary references fly.

The Book of Kings in 50,000 verses.

“While Muhammad forgave a poet and a singing girl right after his conquest of Mecca, he killed satirical poets more often than he forgave.”

Poets and the language of business.

Supermodel uses poetry for therapy.

U.S. Department of State discovers poetry slams.

Canadian poetry roundup.

Denver names new poet laureate.

Pakistani poets converge, condemn Mohammed cartoons.

Two young poets and their Jewishness.

Opera tells story of Chinese poet who ended up a murderer.

"A page-based poet such as Eliot can sometimes appear to be baffling, and you think 'what the hell does this mean?'"—Andrew Motion, England's poet laureate, on hearing poets read their work in his new audio archive.

Utah state laureate dies.

Poems about rugby players and their outrageous hairdos.

Andrew Motion asks: is it time for classrooms to retire Lord of the Flies?

“People come hours early and camp out, as though they’re trying to get World Series tickets,” Denis Woychuk on New York's KGB reading series.

"Menashe's difficulties in his home country probably have a lot to do with the fact that, as an American poet, he appears to have done almost everything wrong." David Orr on Samuel Menashe

Concord poetry center brings poets out of the woodwork.

Alberto Rios flirts with the divine.

David Berman, "miserablist maestro."

Senegal celebrates the centenary of its late president-poet.

Poetry in the Shanghai subway.

"All the landscapes are haunted." Eric McHenry on Dave Smith

Yevgeny Yevtushenko was once the most dangerous poet in the Soviet Union. Now he lives in Oklahoma.

Rock stars join effort to save infamous literary love nest.

In rural Yorkshire, using poetry to prevent thefts from sheds and outbuildings.

Jamaica's spin on World Poetry Day.

Obsessed with Billy Joel, and convinced he is a poet.

The new issue of the Boston Review, with extended takes on Menashe, Hillman, Carson, and Ronald Johnson.

Lucinda Williams and her father, poet Miller Williams, used to spend afternoons with Flannery O’Connor.

Rumi dinner party.

Mary Karr finds religion.

Construction workers discover sarcophagus decorated with Homeric scenes.

"In a rhythmic trance, you say things you didn't know you knew."—Galway Kinnell, addressing students at his old high school.

Pub where Ploughshares magazine was born reopens, drinkers rejoice.

The Returning Dead.

The bard of March Madness defends his rhymes.

Charles Newman, Triquarterly editor, dies.

Liverpool poet snubs Condi.

National Recitation contest winner chose poem that ”scratches my roots.”

In Tennessee, state senate considers four line poem.

Poets protest US detention camps.

“Cavafy’s poems are much taken up with little rooms—often the ‘closed, perfumed rooms’ of illicit appetites.”—Brad Leithauser

Rita Dove’s manicure tips.

Turning a thousand-year-old verse into opera.

In a play about Lorca, an unexpected level of “erotic believability.”

Jay Parini on why we need Richard Wilbur.

“If poetry appeared in newspapers rather than in literary magazines, it would change the way people respond to poetry.” –Ed Hirsch

John Lennon’s expensive school notebook.

Man turns to poetry instead of bodybuilding.

David Berman, indie rock king.

Rare, gloomy Blake watercolors on the auction block.

Poet seeks funds for work depicting India to the world.

Ian Hamilton Finlay, poet, “avant gardener,” libertarian revolutionary, dies.

Child wins poetry contest with someone else’s poem.

Doctor Kooser.

Poet who penned anti-Clinton verses dies.

Angelou gives out scholarships in Little Rock.

Poetry Out Loud heard in Kentucky.

Poet’s motion to British Parliament is tabled, too much slang and irony.

Another brave, deceased child poet.

Famous poetry bookshop sold, and ex-owner looks forward to catching up on thirty years of sleep.

Muldoon and Achebe lecture at the UN, spur comments about world peace and the word “trousers.”

Langston Hughes put to music.

Baseball as inspiration for poetry slammers.

“The unexplained glory flies above them.” Poetry Out Loud in Kentucky.

200 year old love poem discovered.

Copper Canyon Press: "evangelistic devotion" to poetry.

Bob Dylan could teach you a thing or two.

Cliches about the "hard-drinking lives of poets"—Charles Isherwood on A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop.

College dorm renamed to honor slave poet.

Budding poets burned by scam.

"Give me more dough and I'll give you a hell of a show."–Anne Sexton

A compressed guide to National Poetry Month, via Poets & Writers.