Poem-a-Day - She flew past blessings long ago

June 13, 2023

Poems for Juneteenth

Celebrate and reflect on Juneteenth next week with these voices from Poets.org:

“To a Dark Girl” by Gwendolyn Bennett
“Reparation” by Joshua Bennett
“Interrogation Suite: Where did you come from / how did you arrive?” by Remica Bingham-Risher
“Emancipation” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
“We are Marching” by Carrie Law Morgan Figgs
“I worked hard so my girls didn’t have to serve nobody else like I did except God” by Yona Harvey
“My People” by Langston Hughes
“Tired” by Fenton Johnson
“Louisa County Patrol Claims, 1770–1863” by Kiki Petrosino
“Inheritance” by Camille Rankine
“Emancipation” by Priscilla Jane Thompson
“For My People” by Margaret Walker

Another and Another Before That: Some Thoughts on Reading

“I knew nothing about Auden’s sexuality—and it would be almost twenty years before I entirely understood my own. But in ‘Lullaby’ I first encountered what, for me, was then just as radical a notion: that love and faithlessness were not necessarily exclusive of each other, and that flaw did not always equal ruin.”

—Carl Phillips, from “Another and Another Before That: Some Thoughts on Reading”

In celebration of Pride Month, revisit this feature in which Phillips discusses reading and how it informs aesthetics and his own perspective on sexuality. Phillips is the recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection, Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007–2020 (FSG/Carcanet, 2022).

more at poets.org

We’re pleased to announce that Victoria Chang will judge the 2024 Academy of American Poets First Book Award, the nation’s most generous first-book prize for poetry. Submissions to the 2024 First Book Award will be accepted online between July 1 and September 1, 2023.

The winner will receive $5,000 plus a six-week, all-expenses-paid residency at Civitella Ranieri in Umbria, Italy, and the winning manuscript will be published by Graywolf Press in 2025. In addition, the Academy of American Poets will purchase and send thousands of copies of the book to its members, which will make it one of the most widely distributed poetry books of the year. Learn more.

more at poets.org

Former Texas poet laureate and 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow Cyrus Cassells honored the winners of What Juneteenth Means (To Me), a poetry contest for Texas students in grades eight through twelve that encourages exploration of the events that make Juneteenth such a significant holiday.

The winners of the 2023 contest were chosen by Texas historian Martha Hartzog and Texas-based poets Jennifer Chang, Amanda Johnston, and Roger Reeves. The Texas Observer will feature first-place winner Samiyah Green’s poem, “The Pantoum,” in the July/August issue of the magazine.

In honor of Juneteenth, read the winning poems and learn more here.

“I also really wanted to amplify work that might be overlooked because it doesn’t behave like poetry should, or because the maker sits outside whatever usual institutions might want to claim or commodify it.”

—Brian Teare, Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for June

Teare is the author of six books, including Doomstead Days (Nightboat Books, 2019), winner of the Four Quartets Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle, Kingsley Tufts, and Lambda Literary Awards. Read and listen to a Q&A with Teare about his Poem-a-Day curatorial approach.

more at poets.org

Watch “Poems for a Tattered Planet” by Poetry Coalition founding member Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po) and Overpass Light Brigade, a short poetic film featuring the 2023 In-Na-Po faculty, fellows, and staff, inspired by the coalition’s 2023 programming theme, “and so much lost you’d think / beauty had left a lesson: Poetry & Grief."

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Join Milkweed Editions, the Academy of American Poets, and the Alan B. Slifka Foundation to celebrate Winter Stranger, the debut collection by the 2022 Max Ritvo Prize winner Jackson Holbert, on Thursday, June 15, at 7 p.m. EDT. Register for this free, virtual event here. (Sponsored).

more at poets.org

Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, is seeking a full-time visiting assistant professor of creative and fiction writing.
Union Square & Co. in New York City is seeking a full-time associate production manager.
University of Massachusetts Press in Amherst is seeking a full-time marketing and sales manager.
Hub City Writers Project in Spartanburg, South Carolina, is seeking a full-time Hub City Bookshop manager and part-time bookseller.
Library of America in New York City is seeking a full-time, two-year editorial fellow. Apply by June 16, 2023.

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

June 4: “Sappho” by Sara Teasdale
June 5: “Sappho for Everybody” by Maxe Crandall
June 6: “Instructions Before Stuttering” by JJJJJerome Ellis
June 7: “Drought Essay” by Isabel Neal
June 8: “Mahogany” by Vanessa Jimenez Gabb
June 9: from “This Household of Earthly Nature; An Essay” by Cody-Rose Clevidence
June 10: “Walls” by C. P. Cavafy

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Carrie Law Morgan Figgs Louisa County Patrol Claims Paul Laurence Dunbar Priscilla Jane Thompson

Poem-a-Day - She flew past blessings long ago

Another and Another Before That: Some Thoughts on Reading

Key phrases

Older messages

"Canto for the Chestnut-Eared Laughingthrush" by Hai-Dang Phan

"Holly Says Sobriety is Paying Attention" by Susan Landers

from "This Household of Earthly Nature; An Essay" by Cody-Rose Clevidence

"Walls" by C. P. Cavafy

"The Weather-Cock Points South" by Amy Lowell

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