Poem-a-Day - "I belong there. I have many memories."

October 18, 2023

“Safe Harbor in Enemy Homes” by Rasha Abdulhadi

“Memorial Day for the War Dead” by Yehuda Amichai
“Edensong” by Peter Cole
“I Belong There” by Mahmoud Darwish
“Born. Living. Will. Die.” by Camonghne Felix
“A Road for Loss” by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat
“Anonymous Song” by Fady Joudah
“We Lived Happily During the War” by Ilya Kaminsky
“My Heart like a Nation” by Philip Metres
“Moon Over Gaza” by Naomi Shihab Nye
“In Response to the Murder of Eleven Jews, Including a Ninety-Seven Year-Old Said to Be a Holocaust Survivor, Who Wasn’t” by Achy Obejas
“Where I Eat” by Claire Schwartz
“Mouth Still Open” by Mosab Abu Toha
“Dialogic” by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

“His early poetry transformed the dispossessed land into the unattained beloved whose images inform the poet’s lexicon. The features of Palestine—its flowers and birds, towns and waters—became integrated in the poet’s witness to the string of tragedies, political and humanitarian, that have continued to afflict his people.”

—From Fady Joudah’s essay, “Along the Border: On Mahmoud Darwish”

more at poets.org

It grieves me to think
the dead won’t see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.

—Louise Glück (1943–2023), “The Night Migrations”

We mourn the loss of Academy of American Poets Chancellor Emerita Louise Glück, who passed away on Friday, October 13. Read more about Glück, including poems.

Like every leaving wasn’t a country
that seceded from your body.

—“Make Love to Me Like We’ve Never Known Violence ”

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal is the author of Beast Meridian (Noemi Press, 2017). The recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award in Poetry and a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles. Read and listen to a Q&A with Villarreal about her Poem-a-Day curatorial approach.

“It is a great privilege to serve this community and bring poetry to its people. As not only the youngest, but also the first person of color who has received this honor, it is my mission to uplift marginalized voices and identities.”

—2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow Diannely Antigua (Portsmouth, NH)

Read more about Antigua and her fellowship project here.

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

In Lit & Luz Festival’s signature celebration, Live Magazine Show, artists and writers from Mexico and the United States will debut multimedia, collaborative pieces, presented in both Spanish and English. Saturday, October 21, at 7 p.m. CDT at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (220 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60611). Buy tickets here. (Sponsored)

We’re pleased to present our fall and winter season of in-person, virtual, and hybrid readings, staged premieres, and conversations. Programs include a reading featuring Academy Chancellors at the 92NY; Gather in Poems, a celebration of poetry and community; the annual Blaney Lecture on contemporary poetry and poetics; and a reading at the AWP Conference in Kansas City. Learn more and join us at one of our upcoming events.

2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows Peter J. Harris and Carla Rachel Sameth (Altadena, CA) present “Writing the Octavia Butler Poem” with Shonda Buchanan at the Altadena Library (2659 Lincoln Avenue, Altadena, CA 91001). Tuesday, October 24, 2023 from 6 to 8 p.m. PT. All ages welcome. Learn more.

Ambroggio Prize and Landon Translation Award

We are accepting submissions for the 2024 Ambroggio Prize, a $1,000 publication prize given for a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation, and the 2024 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award, which is a $1,000 award that recognizes the work of a translator for a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in 2023. Submissions will be accepted through February 15, 2024.

more at poets.org

Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize

Established in 2019 with generous support from Treehouse Investments, the Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize is given to honor exceptional poems that help readers recognize the gravity of the vulnerable state of our environment. The prize will honor three poets. First place will receive $1,000; second place, $750; and third place, $500. Submissions are accepted from September 15, 2023, through November 15, 2023. The judges are poet Elizabeth Bradfield and climate scientist Kate Marvel, PhD.

more at poets.org

NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study in New York, New York, is seeking a full-time assistant professor of literature.
University of Virginia is seeking a full-time assistant professor in poetry.

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

October 8: “Let No Charitable Hope” by Elinor Wylie
October 9: “Decolonialish Self-Portrait” by Sara Borjas
October 10: “You, Emblazoned” by Cass Donish
October 11: “A Sonnet” by Jos Charles
October 12: “[by way of entry you sit with an object]” by Chaun Webster
October 13: “Friends with No Benefits” by Megan Fernandes
October 14: “She Passed This Way” by Djuna Barnes

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Poem-a-Day - "I belong there. I have many memories."

Older messages

"You, Emblazoned" by Cass Donish

"Decolonialish Self-Portrait" by Sara Borjas

"Let No Charitable Hope" by Elinor Wylie

"The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad" by Wallace Stevens

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