News Archive

Children's poetry is selling like hotcakes.

Poets discuss what they're reading. Surely someone is secretly reading a trash novel?

Was Dante into the reefer?

"Everything startles with its beauty / when assigned value has been eradicated."—Galway Kinnell

Journalist declares poetry radio program to be hope for a declining culture. How long can a culture decline before it is dead as a doornail?

Reggae's reigning king of poetry.

Poetry put to music by an ex-model who once boinked Mick Jagger.

"The 'poetry gloom' is a plausible but fake crisis in American poetry—a 'baloney crisis.'"—Robert Pinsky

Inbox flooded? Spam-ku expert repurposes e-junk, says dental ads make the best poems.

In the late ’60s, Israeli military authorities arrested Mahmoud Darwish each time he published a poetry collection.

PoeMP3s: Richard Hell vs. C.K. Williams—who will win???

“Principles have got to be lost in order to be found”: Robert Frost, beyond category.

Nick Tosches on Erich Auerbach’s Dante: “We still have Steiner and, in spirit and works, men such as Auerbach. But most of all, we have Oprah.”

Mystical Baha’i writings vs. Grand Theft Auto—who will win???

Better than a poetry reading: Colloquium participants give props to Baraka, Hughes.

Atmosphere so tense at Vietnamese poetry auction that a musical interlude is required.

Valentine’s Day approaches—are love poems part of your woo-kit?

“Lord . . . thank you for the drip, for saline solutions, tubes and above all for sleeping pills with names like Roman nymphs . . .”: Zbigniew Herbert, master of the prose poem.

“The moon rose / a carnival moon / full of hate / they tied it up and threw it butchered / into the sea”: the nightmare poetry of Miltos Sachtouris.

I’m writing a haiku for this Gnarls Barkley contest—does that make me crazy?

"You need to be careful with your lineation—and all the more so if you choose not to use punctuation": notes from an online poetry workshop.

Lambda nominees include titles by Djuna Barnes, Justin Chin.

About Jane: "My heart is broken, and now I am breaking the world's heart," Donald Hall is quoted as saying.

Poet Frank Sherlock, without insurance, is hit with meningitis; friends raise funds.

"Poetry is not psychology, and it is not religion.": Nikki Giovanni endures tragedy.

"Dreamy-eyed" suspect in murder of dancer wrote violent poems and lyrics prior to incident.

Mogul rhymes in e-mail (but needs work with meter) in titanic real-estate buyout battle.

Rage instead of wrath: Reading Fagles's Aeneid.

Latest entry in the Summarize Wright competition: describe landscape, write aphorism.

Exile and reward: Darwish snags Struga's Golden Crown.

"Nobody is the boss of God," not even David Shapiro—but you should read him anyway.

Pinsky points to poetry's "plausible but fake and very widely accepted crisis," dubs it a type of luncheon meat.

Want to add oomph up your PowerPoint presentations? Kick it Robert Browning style.

"The English poet James Fenton has survived the specter of his own immense promise."—Stephen Metcalf

What does Yeat's "Second Coming" really say about the Iraq War?

How to read Ashbery: "Relax."

"Since there is a suspicion of poets who write strictly in rhyme, as opposed to Poets-with-a-Capital-P free versers, the bar is set high for Prelutsky."

New Yorker gives new meaning to poetry slam.

Nathaniel Mackey: “One embarks on writing poetry or being a poet, whatever being a poet means, in a pretty tentative way.”

Poem responds to immigrant guidelines in Quebec, outrage follows.

“I drink a lot about my thinking problem”—poetry noir gets the stage treatment.

Chicago poetry press launches inaugural book today.

“His other organizing principle is rhyme, which he wields the way rappers do.”—William Corbett on Frederick Seidel.

Everything you always wanted to know about sex: Robert Pinsky risqué.

“Maybe both of us feared that ‘love’ was a synonym for ‘pain.’”—Donald Hall

Rodney Jones wins Tufts award and 100K, and PF.org's own Eric McHenry wins 10K for his Potscrubber Lullabies. And yes, he has kids. Anyone who would invent such a title has kids.

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wins award. The award comes at a conference in Cairo called “Poetry In Our Life.” Such a title could give one a headache. Perhaps poets might consider narrowing down the topics of these blasted conferences?

Guy is arrested in car chase, tries Valentine’s poetry on the female judge. It doesn’t work.

International grade school poetry contest: Guess what? Racism reared its ugly head. When will racism stop doing that?

After daughter dies, father assembles her unfinished book of poems.

Helen Vendler to Harvard: Don’t think you invented poetry or something.

Researchers work to make poem so small no one can see it. Hey, what about the poem so big you can see it from outer space? Like from a UFO maybe?

John Yau knows how to open an interview. Ask about UFOs.

Turns out Brecht had more girlfriends than he could count.

Glyn Maxwell raves about former teacher Derek Walcott’s latest.

“Paul Muldoon’s poetry, suspicious of sanctimony and sentimentality and frankly addicted to puns, dares us to ask: is he serious?”—New York Times reviews Horse Latitudes

Girly Man contains multitudes, serving up “doggerel, haiku, list poems, lyric poems, sonnets, satires and translations.” But did it find a word to rhyme with orange?

Third Dylan Thomas biopic in the works.

Ever wondered if ninjas write poetry? Just ask.

Ninja poet.

Thousands of manuscripts—and 17 form letters: Jeffrey Levine explains the Dorset Prize fiasco.

When “deliberate” becomes “inevitable”: the story behind Auden’s “Spain.”

Beyond black and white: Looking to Langston Hughes in the age of Obama.

“Any large number of free-thinking Jews (is) undesirable”: Don’t worry about this T.S. Eliot quote!

A potentially great Scrabble hand: Pinsky in Qatar.

Turn, turn, turn: More on Raine’s Eliot bio.

The corrections: Helping Indiana inmates discover poetry.

Auden at 100: Cabbies in his native York get him by heart, while James Fenton feels vindicated.

What to do when you see an eagle: Redefinding “found poetry.”

Bears bard congratulates Colts, drives us insane.

Cambridge Idol? Mass. town casts votes for its “poet populist.”

Too hot for teacher: New Jersey high school principal’s poems cause uproar.

How ’bout a moratorium on the headline “Bad to Verse”? (scroll down)

“Oh Canadian FedEx lady...”: Did this ode get its author fired from Apple’s sales department?

More Coleridgiana for you: News from the Porlock Visitor Centre.

Poems on Various Subjects is “a ragbag of remnants from Coleridge’s life.”

“She continues to put the muscle of her craft in the service of her steady sensuous intellect.” Sven Birkerts on Ellen Bryant Voigt.

Setting Shakespeare’s sonnets to music. Not easy.

The Danish Poet wins Oscar for best short film. Subsequently, filmmaker expresses feelings of crazed happiness.

Despite pressure from government censors, University of Iowa to publish poems by Guantánamo detainees.

“Like WB Yeats, Claus rages against the decay of the physical self while desire remains untamed.” JM Coetzee on Hugo Claus.

USPS issues Longfellow stamp for the second time.

Frank Bidart wins Bollingen Prize for his “eerie” poetry. 100K: definitely not chump change.

Explicit poem gets a Pittsburgh teacher in trouble. Local paper writes article that reads like a weird poem of some kind.