News Archive

Madge McKeithen’s Blue Peninsula: Taking what she needs from poetry.

John Was Here: Cottage will be redecorated to look like it did when John Clare wrote in its rooms.

This place is a muse, admit it.

Almost 53 years after his death, Dylan Thomas wins Irish Derby.

Fear not, Archibald MacLeish's library can still be found in western Massachusetts.

Jim Morrison’s final notebook, finally.

Kate Moss writes a poem for her ex. Certainly she’s prettier than a line of coke?

Beltway Poetry Quarterly produces poet’s map of Washington D.C.

Cheers to you, officemates: praise for Poetry’s humor issue.

More Donald Hall fun facts: He smokes a pack a day and doesn’t use a typewriter.

“It is as if she has written our collective epitaph.”—Maureen N. McClane on Louise Glück

Woman wanders around Europe looking for poets to talk to.

Hack poetry contests: win a mug with your poem emblazoned on it.

Readings in honor of London bomb victims.

Liverpool poet laureate awarded honorary degree, remembers when people were a “bit sniffy” about his work.

The life of poet Fernando Pessoa and the death of 72 imaginary characters.

Donald Hall-a-palooza: The tour stops here, here, here, here, and here.

Gwyn Thomas, new national poet of Wales: “Poetry is a unique medium to respond to the world in which we live.”

In New Jersey, a tour of Walt Whitman’s stomping ground, and a white-bearded “re-enactor” reading his poems.

The dying art: ancient Egyptian poem describes suicidal thoughts.

A new edition of Wallace Stevens’ Collected Poems raises the question: how important can one guy be?

A new collection of Cole Porter lyrics: even naked on the page, the rhythms get under your skin.

Pakistani poet Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi is dead at 89.

Does the end of another independent bookstore mean the end of civilization?

New National Poet of Wales has an idea: pub poetry for the tipsy masses.

Robert Southey: a poet laureate with a terrible temper, and the author of "The Three Bears."

In Washington D.C., Afghan cab drivers establish rival poetry societies.

Poet applies for restraining order against noisy bird.

Question: do you remember me from AWP? Answer: NO.

The Bell Jar goes to Hollywood, and Plath purists cringe.

Become a famous rock star, and you could sell your poems for more than 100K: Morrison auction at Christie’s.

In Louisiana, no one can agree on what a good state poem looks like.

“I am not going to walk around in tears all day long. I still want to have a good day if I can.”–James Tate in the Paris Review

Rimbaud and the punk rock mentality.

Missing Shelley poem found, scholars go bananas.

The battle over Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room: renovation or vandalism?

Seamus Heaney: Does he really need another prize?

“Whatever you call his work, this is not a book of greeting cards.”—Matt Briggs on John Yau

Grendel opens and the wall does not fall.

Father takes up arms against Spoken Word Revolution.

“One of the most richly rewarding poets of our age.”—Marion Stocking on W.S. Merwin

NYT goes gaga over Heaney: “lovely,” “wonderful,” “extraordinary,” “startling.”

“Best of the lady poets.”—Robert Frost on Emily Dickinson

The rise and fall of Edith Sitwell.

Robert Graves museum makes island of Majorca a celeb magnet.

Rx for poetry magazines: have an editorial mission.

New anthology celebrates Nelson Mandela: mostly heroic poems, with a couple of doubters thrown into the mix.

Eleven fireplaces and a pet cemetary: Robinson Jeffers’ California home.

How many poems fit on a matchstick? Twelve, it turns out.

Swear words are part of the damn language: father loses campaign to take slam poetry anthology out of school library.

Donald Hall to attend Laura Bush National Book Festival. We hear both Donald and Laura are chain smokers, so perhaps they will bum cigarettes off each other.

Trying to decipher Shakespeare’s code.

Hey four-eyes, don’t be a ball-hog: Amazonian women basketball players inspire “skittery” male poet.

Virginia poet laureate got her start rhyming “ball” with “fall.”

Judge doesn't think much of man's poetry, sentences him to life in prison.

You never know when you might be driving through a town named after a poet.

Writer declares most readings are horrible, but one Big Gulp-drinking poet is an exception.

Poets are “mostly wicked as a ginless tonic.”—Wendy Cope

From Turkish newspaper columnist Kerim Balci: “Poetic fragmentations result in the fall of empires.”

“Many people rebel against their employers in one way or another.”—Ted Kooser

Playwright adapts poems obsessed with Joan Crawford.

Forget the guys in fruit costumes, Fruit of the Loom turns to poetry.

“Hip-hop made me proud of being black in ways that my parents could never do by forcing me to read a Langston Hughes poem.”—Saul Williams

Who says poetry isn't political? All the intrigue of a Tom Clancy novel.

“He wanted a woman who could be convinced to submit.”—Donald Sheehy on Robert Frost

Patricia Goedicke Robinson, poet and teacher, dies.

Pakistani poet returns prize, saying it was given by a government that denies basic democratic rights.

Louise Glück must be on the verge of a bad case of adulation fatigue.

In Australia, patrons restrain poets like a too-tight suit.

Women “were regarded as little more than children in ancient Greece.” Yet it’s quite possible Homer was of the female persuasion.

In the New York Times, Henry Alford conducts a survey of bathroom reading.

From the Mideast to Eastern Oregon and back again. Professor to be buried in tomb of famous Iranian poet.

“Experimental writing is by definition its own adventure, a way characterized most definitely with error yet also with discovery.”—Marjorie Welish on Raymond Queneau

Bollywood actress writes poems on toilet paper.

Christina Aguilera writes poem, and decides to tone down the dirty stuff.

Woman posts Cavafy poem online, hoping to make friends. As usual, things get dirty fast.

“Unlike the unicorn or the manticore, empirical evidence suggests that there’s a population out there that still answers to that description.”—David Barber, poetry editor of The Atlantic, on the common reader

Former truck driver takes to the air to advertise his poetry.

Most famous radio broadcast ever begins with a poem.

Talking smack: defenders of poet jailed for alleged possession of heroin speak up.

Jamaican poet and artist Louise Bennett-Coverly dies.

Spam creates its own language, and it’s disgustinglovely.

“We increasingly reside in a political culture that doesn't wish us to pay close attention to much of anything, beyond everyday distraction and camouflage,”—Robert Polito talking about New School’s newly-funded Writing and Democracy program.

Wayne Koestenbaum on John Wayne’s perfume and Jewish porn films.

Welsh poet Dannie Abse recounts car crash that killed his wife.

Maybe Penelope wasn’t just weaving all that time? More on the rumor that The Odyssey was written by a woman.

Kay Ryan on PBS: “The sun is bright, but the chickens are in the way.”

The Economist surveys new poetry, and finds that some of it will put you to sleep faster than an Ambien.

“The main rule is that a poet must never say what he wants to say directly.”— William Empson

Dead husbands, lynchings, and other cheery topics: reviews of four new books.

Patricia Goedicke, poet and university professor, dies at 75.

Remembering Stanley Kunitz, one poem at a time.

Street Poet: bad movie, good poems.

Hope for rejected writers: put your poem in this newspaper box, and it will automatically get published.

In Nevada, poet laureate is lounge singer.

During an awesome party down at the Frost place, window gets broken.

John Donne: looked for a job for fourteen years and couldn’t find one.