"Free, I know I’d love / To ramble soul and all"

February 7, 2023

Celebrate Black History Month by reading work published in the anthology Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Black Poets of the Twenties (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen.

“Your Songs” by Gwendolyn Bennett
“The Day-Breakers” by Arna Bontemps
“To Lovers of Earth: Fair Warning” by Countee Cullen
“True Love” by Waring Cuney
“Solace” by Clarissa Scott Delaney
“Four Walls” by Blanche Taylor Dickinson
“Requiem” by John F. Matheus
“The New Negro” by James Edward McCall
“Cavalier” by Bruce Nugent

Countee Cullen was born Countee LeRoy Porter on May 30, 1903, likely in Louisville, Kentucky. His first volume of verse, Color (Harper & Bros., 1925), was published around the same year he was admitted to Harvard University, where he completed an MA in English. Cullen went on to publish several more poetry collections, including On These I Stand: An Anthology of the Best Poems of Countee Cullen (Harper & Bros., 1947). Cullen’s work demonstrates the range of subjects and aesthetic interests that poets of the Harlem Renaissance addressed. He died on January 9, 1946.

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“I came up with the idea of asking African American writers to write love sonnets, and I forget, although a sonnet is only fourteen lines, it’s a challenge for a lot of people, you know.”

Read and listen to an interview with Patricia Smith, author of Unshuttered (Northwestern University Press, 2023) and Incendiary Art (Northwestern University Press, 2017), winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Award in Poetry. Read and listen to Smith discuss the Poem-a-Day curatorial approach and more on Poets.org.

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“The affinity between the couplet form and the subject of homoerotic love seems totally intuitive to me now. [...] The couplet form offered a clear grammar for my messy thoughts, and also gave me an excuse to exult in the textures of language (rather than address daunting metatextual questions like ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What is it I plan to do with my one wild and precious life?’).”

Read the latest enjambments interview with Maggie Millner on her collection Couplets, published today through Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Read poems from the book on Poets.org:

“Proem”
“2.5”
“3.10”

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Sponsored Content

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Request your free copy of the official National Poetry Month poster in time for the April 2023 celebration!

The 2023 poster was designed by Marc Brown, creator of the popular Arthur series. The artwork incorporates an excerpted line from the poem “Carrying” by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.

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Linda Hogan’s poem “The Sandhills,” performed by CMarie Fuhrman. “The Sandhills” is the first film in Above Strands of Earth: Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation at Tippet Rise, a film series produced in collaboration with Tippet Rise Art Center and the Academy of American Poets. Directed by Matthew Thompson and shot at Tippet Rise Art Center. Learn more about Fuhrman and Hogan and explore more poetry at https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org.

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Check out our #PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week: the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents “That Various Field: Alex Katz’s Creative Communities and the Field of Interdisciplinary Collaboration,” a series of panel discussions and poetry readings with artists and scholars in celebration of the exhibition’s final weeks, featuring poets John Godfrey, Vincent Katz, Eileen Myles, and Academy Chancellors Emeriti Ron Padgett and Anne Waldman. Friday, February 10, from 2:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. EST at the Guggenheim Museum (1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY). Buy tickets here. (Sponsored).

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Apply for the 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships

The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships are $50,000 awards given to honor poets of literary merit appointed to serve in civic positions and to enable them to undertake meaningful, impactful, and innovative projects that engage their fellow residents, including youth, with poetry, helping to address issues important to their communities, as well as create new work. We are accepting applications for the 2023 fellowships until February 17, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. ET. Find out more here.

Apply for the 2023 Ambroggio Prize

The Ambroggio Prize is a $1,000 publication prize given for a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation. The winning manuscript is published by University of Arizona Press. The 2023 Ambroggio Prize will be judged by Achy Obejas. Learn more and apply here by February 15, 2023 (11:59 p.m. ET).

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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).

more at poets.org

Seattle Colleges is seeking two full-time, tenure-track English faculty members.
Chronicle Books in San Francisco is seeking a full-time social media manager.

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

January 29: “X Rays” by Max Eastman
January 30: “an armistice between my dead folks and my delusions” by Ra Malika Imhotep
January 31: “This Beautiful Planet” by Dorothea Lasky
February 1: “black love” by Evie Shockley
February 2: “Brown Estate, 2018 Tempranillo” by Cortney Lamar Charleston
February 3: “Kink” by Imani Davis
February 4: “Substitution” by Anne Spencer

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"Free, I know I’d love / To ramble soul and all"

Older messages

"Canopy" by Arlene Keizer

"Continental Breakfast" by Nkosi Nkululeko

"When Dawn Comes to the City" by Claude McKay

"Substitution" by Anne Spencer

"Kink" by Imani Davis

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