Poem-a-Day - "August / sunlight in your hair"

August 8, 2023

International Day Of The World’s Indigenous People

On December 23, 1994, the United Nations General Assembly declared August 9 as International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. In honor of the occasion, reflect with these poems by Indigenous writers:

On the Backs of American Bison” by b: william bearhart
“(De)colonial Therapy” by Esther Belin
“A Quest for Universal Suffrage” by Kimberly Blaeser
“Sonnets from the Cherokee (I)” by Ruth Muskrat Bronson
“All the Tired Horses in the Sun” by Joy Harjo
“Lullaby of the Iroquois” by Emily Pauline Johnson
“More Than Something Else” by Rainy Dawn Ortiz
“On the Hills of Dawn” by Alexander Posey
“Iris of Life” by Zitkála-Šá
“Amphibious” by Aimee Suzara
“A Song of a Navajo Weaver” by Bertrand N. O. Walker

Watch Ricardo Maldonado’s interview with CNN En Español on his historic appointment as the Executive Director & President of the Academy of American Poets, with English translation, here.

Poems in August

“The August Preoccupations” by Catherine Barnett
“August” by Dorothy Parker
“August” by Lizette Woodworth Reese
“August” by Algernon Charles Swinburne
“Transfigurations” by Arthur Sze
“August Moonrise” by Sara Teasdale

“a yard is a measure, a curb its end”

—From Divya Victor’s poem “Blood/Soil”

Victor, this month’s Poem-a-Day Guest Editor, 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.

more at poets.org

Watch Elizabeth Marvel read Sharon Olds’s poem “My Son the Man” as part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation's Read By series of poetry films.

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Join us for the 23rd annual National Book Festival presented by the Library of Congress, featuring readings by seventy of the nation’s best authors, poets, and illustrators, including Academy of American Poets Chancellor Joy Harjo. Saturday, August 12, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center (801 Mt. Vernon Pl. N.W., Washington, D.C.). Several programs will also be live-streamed, and video of all talks can be viewed online after the festival concludes. Register for free here.

2024 First Book Award

Manuscript 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

The New Yorker is seeking a full-time director of social media.
The New Press in New York City is seeking a full-time senior director of development and director of communications and engagement.
Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles is seeking a full-time assistant professor of creative writing.
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 30: “All Souls’ Day in a German Town” by Margaret Fairless Barber
July 31: “Forest Starships” by Petra Kuppers
August 1: “Poem Without Love” by Tarfia Faizullah
August 2: “For My Cats Gaspara & Alfonsina” by Michael Leong
August 3: from “outgoing tide—” by Pattie McCarthy
August 4: “ghost canto” by Ariel Resnikoff
August 5: “Senlin: A Biography (Part I, Section II)” by Conrad Aiken

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Poem-a-Day - "August / sunlight in your hair"

Older messages

"Ewako" by Tanya Lukin Linklater

"Names for Hunger" by Mrigaa Sethi

"Skull Song" by Genevieve Taggard

"Senlin: A Biography (Part I, Section II)" by Conrad Aiken

"ghost canto" by Ariel Resnikoff

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