2021 Poets Laureate Fellows Interviews, Poets' Birthdays, and more

July 5, 2022

“In this time of emotional and physical ache, pandemic grief, and racial upheaval, in this moment of cultural plate tectonics, shifting paradigms into the insecure glint of promise—these poetry projects pour over our community, laying a foundation for a new and better way of being. After all, poetry is an amplifier, earbuds to the heart. It is also a microscope, magnifying the hidden, and the hazardous. Poetry ensures the electromagnetic pull, draws out, drags from us—our muffled best and muzzled worst.”

—Semaj Brown, 2021 Poet Laureate Fellow

Read these interviews with our 2021 Poets Laureate Fellows cohort about their projects, their communities, and the power of poetry.

Celebrate July by reading work from poets born this month:

“For My People” by Margaret Walker (July 7, 1915)
“Nothing Twice” by Wisława Szymborska (July 2, 1923)
“The Song of Despair” by Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904)
“Sonnet” by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (July 19, 1875)
“Alcove” by John Ashbery (July 28, 1927)
“The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz (July 29, 1905)
“I Am Bound, I Am Bound, For A Distant Shore” by Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817)
“Poem for One Little Girl Blue” by June Jordan (July 12, 1817)

First Book Award

Submissions for the First Book Award are now open and will be accepted online until September 1, 2022. Eduardo C. Corral will judge the 2023 Academy of American Poets First Book Award, the most generous first-book prize for poetry in the U.S. The winning manuscript will be published by Graywolf Press and the winning poet will receive a paid residency at Civitella Ranieri.

“I think we’re living during an exciting time for contemporary poetry. There’s a great flourishing of types of poetry. Certainly, there are people who are inventing new forms of poetic expression. It’s cross-disciplinary, which is interesting to me.”

Erica Hunt is the author of Jump the Clock (Nightboat Books, 2020). Read and listen to Hunt discuss her curatorial approach and more on Poets.org.

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Check out our #PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week: Poet Lore and The Writer’s Center present a virtual craft chat with Erika Meitner to discuss her new collection, Useful Junk. Erika will be in conversation with Emily Holland, editor of Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry magazine. Thursday, July 7 at 7 p.m. EDT. Register for this free event here. (sponsored).

Watch and listen to Suzanne Wise read Mina Loy’s poem “There is No Life or Death” as part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation’s Read By series of poetry films.

Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana is seeking an assistant lecturer/assistant teaching professor of English.
Princeton University Press is seeking an editorial assistant.

Revisit last week’s Poem-a-Day selections with us on Poets.org:

June 26: “The Pool” by Bryher
June 27: “On September 14th, Dante’s Death Day” by Pierre Joris
June 28: “Darkened Solar Implication” by Will Alexander
June 29: “b&w sonnet no. 1” by giovanni singleton
June 30: “Dunbar” by Anne Spencer
July 1: “Do not trust the eraser” by Rosamond S. King
July 2: “Answer July” by Emily Dickinson

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One Little Girl Blue cultural plate tectonics Henry David Thoreau Eduardo C Corral generous firstbook prize

2021 Poets Laureate Fellows Interviews, Poets' Birthdays, and more

Key phrases

Older messages

"The Neighbor’s Street Sirens Sing" by Ed Roberson

"Tenant" by Emily Skillings

"Lincoln" by John Gould Fletcher

"Answer July" by Emily Dickinson

"Do not trust the eraser" by Rosamond S. King

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