• Audio
      From VSDecember 2020

      VS Season 4 wraps up with a whisper, a bang, a smile, and a hug from Naomi Shihab Nye! The legendary poet brings a fistful of sunshine to her conversation...

    • Featured Blogger
      By Taylor Johnson

      "there is no absolute, only / surface rise on top of rise" —Christopher Gilbert, “Blues/The Blue Case against the Lack Of”   Not necessarily an urge, not immediacy, not definition as truth,...

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From This Issue February 2021

Podcasts

From The Poetry Magazine PodcastFebruary 2021

In this week’s episode, Bennett and Monson get into literary ancestors, Monson’s top 5 rappers of all time, and what the future of poetry in this country might look like (if we are brave enough to invest in our young people). 

Monson spoke to us from the Michigan Department of Corrections in Freeland, Michigan. His poems are featured in “The Practice of Freedom” issue, which focuses on poetry and visual art produced by artists who have been directly affected by the criminal legal system. Joshua Bennett guest edited the issue alongside Tara Betts and Sarah Ross. 

In Bennett words, “Justin Monson is one of the most courageous, original, daring poets working today. I first encountered his work three years ago, as a judge for PEN America’s Writing for Justice Fellowship, and was absolutely taken aback from the very first lines. The work shimmered. Monson has a fantastic ear, and a citational breadth that is truly a wonder to behold; it’s clear that he reads, and listens, to everything. Postcolonial theory, 90s hip-hop, erasure poetry. It’s all there. All of these traditions are part of the world Monson paints on the page, and is generous enough to share with us.”

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collection

Showcasing one of the most influential cultural movements of the last 50 years.

Featured Biographies

  • author

    Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. Educated and enslaved...

  • author

    Referred to as “one of America’s most original, influential, and productive of lyric poets,” Carl Phillips is the author of a dozen books of...

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