Poem-a-Day - "Seeking, I think, a light that waits"

August 1, 2023

Poems from the Poet Laureate Fellows

Read newly-added poems by the 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows. These laureates from various states, counties, and cities across the nation will each receive $50,000 to carry out public poetry programs in their respective communities through 2024. Celebrate their work by reading their poems:

“On Finding My Father’s First Essay” by Brandy Nālani McDougall (Hawaiʻi)
“Breeding at the End of the World” by Gloria Muñoz (St. Petersburg, Florida)
“Return of the Woolly Mammoth” by Sharon Kennedy-Nolle (Sullivan County, New York)
“Embarkation” by Shin Yu Pai (Seattle, Washington)
“Haikus” by Willie Perdomo (New York)
“I ask about what falls away” by Jason Magabo Perez (San Diego, California)
“Make No Apologies For Yourself” by Glenis Redmond (Greenville, South Carolina)
“Love Letter to a Burning World” by Carla Rachel Sameth (Altadena, California)
“Skins and Bones” by Erin Elizabeth Smith (Oak Ridge, Tennessee)
“If Being a Man Allowed for Emotion” by Junious Ward (Charlotte, North Carolina)
“Abuelo’s Garden” by Joaquín Zihuatanejo (Dallas, Texas)

more at poets.org

“I chose poems that may look harder, think in new shapes, demand more questions, and especially, I chose poems that go beyond seeking affirming, epiphanic assent.”

Please join us in welcoming Divya Victor as the August Poem-a-Day guest editor. Victor is the author of Curb (Nightboat Books, 2021), winner of the 2022 PEN/Open Book Award and the winner of the 2022 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. The collection was also a finalist for the 2022 CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry. Read and listen to a Q&A with Victor about her Poem-a-Day curatorial approach. Read poems by Victor:

“Threshold”
“Blood/Soil”

more at poets.org

Celebrate the beginning of this month with poets born in August:

“Time Study” by Marvin Bell (August 3, 1937)
“August Moonrise” by Sara Teasdale (August 8, 1884)
“A Tale” Louise Bogan (August 11, 1897)
“Paths” Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893)
“Mirabeau Bridge” by Guillaume Apollinaire (August 26, 1880)
“Girls On the Town, 1946” by Rita Dove (August 28, 1952)

John Lee Clark: Disability Poetics and Classic Verse

“From this perspective, disability cannot be reduced to a problem. Instead, it is a mystery—not in the sense of something puzzling or unknowable, but as something alive and moving.”

As part of his July Poem-a-Day curation, John Lee Clark selected ten public domain poems for the series, for which he wrote ten accompanying “About This Poem” statements. Read Clark’s insights on these historical poems and Disability poetics.

more at poets.org

“I believe that the words we use to define ourselves are flexible and aspirational. I feel like I always have an expansive sense of defining who I am and who I can be, therefore, who we are and who we can be.”—Ricardo Maldonado

Read the full interview with Maldonado, who spoke with the Los Angeles Times, here.

Watch Yanyi read “Dream Diary” as part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation's Read By series of poetry films.

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Join the Academy of American Poets’ new Executive Director, Ricardo Maldonado, for a live interview on Univision Network—the most-watched Spanish-language broadcast television network in the country—tomorrow, August 2, at 7:40 p.m. ET. You can watch the interview in Spanish on the Noticias Univision 24/7 channel on the ViX app, which can be downloaded for free.

2024 First Book Award

Submissions for the 2024 Academy of American Poets First Book Award, judged by Victoria Chang, will be accepted online until September 1, 2023. The winner of the First Book Award will receive $5,000, publication by Graywolf Press, a six-week residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy, and distribution of their winning book to thousands of Academy members.

more at poets.org

Words Without Borders is seeking a part-time, freelance poetry editor.
Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, is seeking a full-time director for its creative writing MFA program.
Bookshop.org is seeking a full-time director of digital products.
The Jan Michalski Foundation is accepting applications for its 2024 residencies. Apply by September 14. Learn more here.
Mass Poetry is seeking a full-time program director. Apply by August 15.

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

July 23: “The Author’s Picture” by Thomas Blacklock
July 24: “My Friend, Her Grandson” by Pia Täavila-Borsheim
July 25: “Otters” by Raymond Luczak
July 26: “The Bearing Edge” by Ralph James Savarese
July 27: “Louise” by Tala Khanmalek
July 28: “The Earth” by Sheila Black
July 29: “Faces in the Street” by Henry Lawson

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Poem-a-Day - "Seeking, I think, a light that waits"

Older messages

"Poem Without Love" by Tarfia Faizullah

"Forest Starships" by Petra Kuppers

"All Souls’ Day in a German Town" by Margaret Fairless Barber

"Faces in the Street" by Henry Lawson

"The Earth" by Sheila Black

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