News Archive

92 year old Vermont State Poet doesn't read all that much poetry.

Egyptian poet refuses to pay fine for insulting religious extremist. Poet's furniture will be sold instead.

It's just like American Idol, but for poets (and not in America).

Of nine shortlisted for New Writing Ventures award, eight are women.

If Joe DiMaggio had been a poet.

Library of Congress appoints Charles Simic new poet laureate. Read a biography and some poems. Listen to a podcast. Simic reads his poems: My Shoes, Prodigy, and Fork.

"At age 80, Robert Bly is the Great Elder of American poetry. . . ."

Iranian newspaper shut down after running interview with poet.

"The artist's role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely."—Amiri Baraka

Can the president name 10 American poets?

Reactions to Charles Simic as poet laureate: Jay Parini, the Boston Globe, Adam Kirsch, Monica Hesse.

First ever "poet of the platform" to entertain rail travelers.

National Poetry Slam under way in Austin.

On Billy Collins and accessibility.

Thomas Edison: inventor, business man, poet!?

Translation of Italian sonneteer's work released. Don't worry: they managed to retain all the dirty words.

The South rises again: VQR and University of Georgia Press team up.

Questions for Marvin Bell.

The shortest 277 page book you'll ever read.

Charles Simic talks politics and poetry.

Carol Ann Duffy reviews Dannie Abse's latest, a book written "with a pen dipped in blood and tears."

"Never before had a poetry launch created such instant celebrity."

The paintings of E.E. Cummings.

"The voices of poets sometimes seem too soft and small to be heard these days."

"Unfulfilment" and Welshness in new Wilfred Owen collection.

Don't call him Mr. Zadie Smith: Nick Laird meshes form and function.

Two deaths: Griffin-winning religious writer Margaret Avison and Chilean poet Jose Miguel Vicuña.

Will the itinerant poetry librarian show up in your hometown?

Lunch in Princeton, NJ: $69.55. Face time with Paul Muldoon: priceless.

Second-generation Korean in Japan influenced by Gertrude Stein and William James.

More on Frost's notebooks.

Mistrusting poets is as old as Plato. That doesn't mean it's right!

Slam poet-turned-soldier killed in Iraq.

All poetics is local: Detroit publisher Past Tents makes its pitch.

Malaysian prison poetry recital—need we say more?

"Day by Day": Newfound modesty a culmination or decline? And other Lowellian questions.

Phil Rizzuto: The poet in the announcer's booth dies.

Talking to Poetry editor Christian Wiman about faith, the Foundation, and more.

Israel's theological poets write about the possibility of change.

He could talk about cannolis for three innings: Remembering Yankee shortstop and poetic announcer Phil Rizzuto.

"Not the startling novelty," said The Atlantic way back in 1882. What book was under review?

First e.e. cummings, now Plath: poets who painted.

"I am my own invention": The Dickensian childhood and fascinating life of Shelton Lea.

Marine rapper/poet nearly "speechless" after video poem explodes on YouTube.

Workspace photos reveal how to become a poet laureate.

Charlie Kaufman should do the adaptation: Being Shelley author channels her subject.

Poems from Guantánamo: He says the book's "propaganda," she says it provides a "valuable service."

Mary Jo Salter goes to Baltimore.

"The frankness of A Treatise, and the clarity of the book's ambitions, make it obvious that Hill is not interested in addressing a coterie audience."

Poet, teacher, and critic Ralph J. Mills Jr. dies.

"I call them ankle-biters—gnats."—Billy Collins on his critics.

Beowulf may be great on the page, but listening to it read aloud. . . .

Lead in Anne Sexton stage production is just "a little too adorable."

Is tobacco responsible for English literature as we know it today?

An independent book store that only sells poetry and is profitable!? Profiling Open Books in Seattle.

Art, poetry, and the selected lectures of Bill Berkson.

Robert Pinsky remembers Liam Rector.

An account of Amiri Baraka's time as NJ poet laureate from an admitted "old white geezer."

Grace Paley dies at 84. More here, here, and here.

A review of two books by new laureate Charles Simic . . . from 1995!

On new collections by Atwood, O’Brien, Sweeney, and O’Driscoll.

He's got the face of a laureate: a profile of UK children's laureate, Michael Rosen.

Natasha Trethewey's father named her after a Tolstoy character.

Poetry editor Christian Wiman returns to church—and verse.

Need profundity? Lose the punctuation.

The dot on that dot: V.S. Naipaul's memories of Walcott.

Ashbery at 80: First Guy Maddin movies, now MTV.

Laptop on the fritz? Don't complain: Some Gitmo poets had to write with pebbles on styrofoam.

"Mona Van Duyn, Mark Strand, Billy Collins, Rita Dove. Ring any bells? Ever heard of them?" Um, yeah.

All right, you MtvU students—time for an Ashbery refresher. (Hint: it's not a mixed drink.)

What poet wouldn't want a name that means "So brave, you're crazy?"

The title's almost like a Nirvana song: Rediscovered William Carlos Williams poem finally published.

Invigorating, incomprehensible, inimitable: Reading Eshleman's Vallejo.

"Everybody I know lost everything in the storm": Katrina survivor takes to verse.

Get hip and drink from Burns's flask.

Heaven can't wait: Now's the time to read Dante's Paradiso.

"Spear me down, heaven" VT killer's poem and a symposium mystery.

Grand slam: Khary Jackson nabs national honors.

Rumi-nations on the mystical poet's UN year.

From Russia with ampersands: When Cummings went to Lenin's Tomb.

Remembering Philomene Long, poet laureate of Venice . . . California.

Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Thwaite, and the question of audience.