"Too brief again, this August light / its hours shifting"

August 16, 2022

“The August Preoccupations” by Catherine Barnett
“August” by Helen Hunt Jackson
“One Summer” by Ann-Margaret Lim
“August Morning, Upper Broadway” by Alicia Ostriker
“August” by Dorothy Parker
“three Black poems from August” by Danez Smith
“August Moonrise” by Sara Teasdale

From the Latin word for “patchwork,” the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form made up of lines from poems by other poets. Though poets often borrow lines from other writers in their own work, a true cento is composed entirely of lines from other sources. Find inspiration in your end of summer reading by writing your own cento.

“Cento Between the Ending and the End” by Cameron Awkward-Rich
“Wolf Cento” by Simone Muench

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Check out our #PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week: the Kickass Writers Festival 2022 featuring a performance and book signing by NY State Poet Laureate Willie Perdomo. Friday, August 19 at 7 p.m. ET at Pendragon Theater (15 Brandy Brook, Saranac Lake, NY). Register for this free event here. (Sponsored)

“So, what has been in my stack? Ama Codjoe’s Bluest Nude, which I have a galley of. And Ada Limón’s, The Hurting Kind. I’ve been very excited to dive into those books.”

Donika Kelly is the author of The Renunciations (Graywolf Press, 2021), a winner of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. Read and listen to Kelly discuss the Poem-a-Day curatorial approach and more on Poets.org.

Watch and listen to Marie Howe read Juan Ramón Jiménez’s poem “Oceans,” as part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation’s Read By series of poetry films.

First Book Award

Submissions for the First Book Award are still open 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.

Cave Canem in Brooklyn, New York, is seeking a full-time development manager.
Kundiman is seeking a full-time programs manager.
The Poetry Foundation is seeking grant application reviewers for its new grantmaking program.
Poets & Writers in New York City is seeking a full-time production editor.
University of Massachusetts Boston is seeking a full-time assistant professor of creative writing (poetry) to begin teaching September 1, 2023.

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

August 7: “At Sainte-Marguerite” by Trumbull Stickney
August 8: “Ecclesiastes: Thirteen-Year Cicada” by Marissa Davis
August 9: “Not” by Stephanie Cawley
August 10: “A Flair for Language” by Omotara James
August 11: “The Sunset and the Purple-Flowered Tree” by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
August 12: “awaiting a carriage, any” by Bernard Ferguson
August 13: “Reconciliation” by Else Lasker-Schüler

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"Too brief again, this August light / its hours shifting"

Older messages

"You remember the feeling but not what made you feel that way" by Elizabeth Barnett

"Sun to Void" by Ladan Osman

"Summer Wind" by William Cullen Bryant

"Reconciliation" by Else Lasker-Schüler, translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky

"awaiting a carriage, any" by Bernard Ferguson

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