"My heart is like an opal, flashing fire"

November 1, 2022

Poems for Native American Heritage Month

“Morning on Shinnecock” by Olivia Ward Bush-Banks
“Sonnets from the Cherokee (I)” by Ruth Muskrat Bronson
“Manhattan is a Lenape Word” by Natalie Diaz
“Distracted from COVID-19, Attention Shifts to MIA Maiden from Land O’Lakes Butter Box” by Tiffany Midge

“More Than Something Else” by Rainy Dawn Ortiz
“Autumn” by Alexander Posey
“Can You Feel the Native American in Me” by M. L. Smoker
“from WHEREAS [‘Whereas when offered...’]” by Layli Long Soldier
“Dear New Blood” by Mark Turcotte
“So Call it Grace” by Michael Wasson

Celebrate November by reading work by poets born this month

“Her Kind” by Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928)
“Poetry” by Marianne Moore (November 15, 1887)
“O Little Root of a Dream” by Paul Celan (November 23, 1920)
“Tomorrow” by Lope de Vega (November 25, 1562)
“To Autumn” by William Blake (November 28, 1757)

Honoring Gerald Stern

“There’s too little time left to measure
the space between us for that was
long ago”

We remember Gerald Stern, who passed away on October 28, 2022, at the age of ninety-seven. Stern authored several collections of poetry, including Galaxy Love (W. W. Norton, 2017) and This Time: New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton, 1998), for which he received the National Book Award. In 2005, he was selected to receive the Wallace Stevens Award for mastery in the art of poetry. Stern served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006.

“The poets featured here caught my attention because of land and the yearning for it. You’ll notice, however, that in the curation that it’s not all sand, thistle, and bloom. There are images of a pair of working hands; there are images of mothers and the body. There’s both wander and protest.”

Jake Skeets is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers (Milkweed, 2019), which was selected by Kathy Fagan for the 2018 National Poetry Series and received the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Read and listen to Skeets discuss the Poem-a-Day curatorial approach and more on Poets.org.

Join the Academy of American Poets on Thursday, November 17, at 7 p.m. ET for a free, virtual offering of poems and community with readings from Juan Felipe Herrera, Taylor Johnson, Marilyn Nelson, TC Tolbert, and others.

RSVP here. This event will be presented as a live stream on YouTube, with closed captioning provided.

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Check out our #PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week: Mohegan theater-maker Madeline Sayet shares her solo piece, Where We Belong, at The Public Theater. While the play deals with history and heartbreaking moments, it is also funny and personal, filled with wry humor about family and colonialism. Running now until November 27 at The Public Theater (425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY). Buy tickets here. (Sponsored).

The Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce that Marc Brown, author, illustrator, and creator of the popular Arthur book and PBS television series, will design the official poster for the April 2023 occasion of National Poetry Month. Brown was selected by Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, to design the poster as part of a new National Poetry Month collaboration between Scholastic and the Academy of American Poets.

Join Words Without Borders for a multilingual reading and celebration of poetry in translation, held in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. The event will include readings by Samira Negrouche and translator Marilyn Hacker; Zahid M. Naser and translator Pauline Fan; Jeannette Clariond and translator Samantha Schnee; and translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid. Tuesday, November 8, at 12 p.m. EST. Free with registration.

Enter the 2023 Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize

The Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize is given to honor exceptional poems that help make real for readers the gravity of the vulnerable state of our environment. First place receives $1,000; second place, $750; and third place, $500. Winning poems will be featured in our popular Poem-a-Day series. The 2023 Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize will be judged by climate scientist and author Dr. Peter Kalmus and poet Matthew Olzmann. Learn more and apply here by November 15, 2022 (11:59 p.m. ET).

Apply for the 2023 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award

The Harold Morton Landon Translation Award is a $1,000 award recognizing a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in the previous calendar year. The 2023 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award will be judged by Anna Deeny Morales. Learn more and apply here by February 15, 2023 (11:59 p.m. ET).

Poetry Foundation in Chicago is seeking a full-time communications manager.
California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, is seeking to fill a faculty in poetry position.

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

October 23: “An Invite to Eternity” by John Clare
October 24: “Lake of the Isles” by Anni Liu
October 25: “Overalls” by Alan Pelaez Lopez
October 26: “On Desire” by Dujie Tahat
October 27: “Mister” by Oswaldo Vargas
October 28: “Ghazal of Oranges” by Jan-Henry Gray
October 29: “The Haunted House” by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

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"My heart is like an opal, flashing fire"

Older messages

"102" by Joaquín Zihuatanejo

"Lines Written During My Second Pandemic" by Eduardo C. Corral

"The Listeners" by Walter de la Mare

"The Haunted House" by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

"Ghazal of Oranges" by Jan-Henry Gray

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