"we will find ourselves on deck bowing, curtseying to each other"

“In Shiatsu the high seas of pressure points woo him,
how touch restores, relieves, cures, resets the knee,

a child who sometimes lived in cars, taught himself
to play guitar, discovered bioluminescence, unearthing
a tender aptitude for the mining of his own light.

At the Aurora hotel where he lived with his family,
he forecasted his dream board to his mother,
Work on a Cruise ship, Give free massage, Heal the world.” 

Academy Chancellor Nikky Finney shares “On the Good Ship Elijah McClain” on Poets.org, a new poem she premiered at our annual Chancellors’ reading at The New School’s Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. Read the full poem. 

                  Ancestors: A Mapping of Indigenous Poetry and Poets

“As a young Mvskoke student at a state university studying art, I came to poetry because I wanted the intricate and metaphorical language of my ancestors to pass through to my language, my life. I heard my ancestors in my dreams, and the closest I came to hearing them in my life as a young woman in the 1970s was in the voices of the poets…”

—Joy Harjo in her Blaney Lecture “Ancestors: A Mapping of Indigenous Poetry and Poets,” delivered on October 9, 2015, at Poets Forum in New York City.

In 2024, the Blaney Lecture will be delivered by Academy Chancellor Emeritus Jane Hirshfield on March 7, 7:30 p.m. ET. Register here.

“I loved the idea of images being side-by-side while being able to tell a story associatively. I approach poems this way, because they feel like vignettes and/or short films that happen on the page or in speech. Blackness is not a monolithic identity, and I wanted to convey the depth of that by engaging with various forms.”

Read our latest enjambments interview with Tatiana Johnson-Boria on her collection, Nocturne in Joy, published this month by Sundress Publications. Enjoy a selection of poems from the book on Poets.org: 
 

Yalie Saweda Kamara, 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow (Cincinnati, OH), will be hosting “Poet Laureate Office Hours” on Saturday, November 18, which will also mark the second session of her fellowship project, “Keep the Lights On.” In this session, participants will be creating a group poem which will be illustrated and ultimately projected in a public space in Cincinnati in the spring of 2024. 

Join Kamara this Saturday at The Mercantile Library (414 Walnut Street, 11th Floor, Cincinnati, OH 45202) for food, conversation, and collaborative poetry writing between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. ET. Free and open to the public. Learn more.

Join us on December 14 at 7 p.m. ET for Gather in Poems, a virtual reading in the spirit of gathering and gratitude featuring Elizabeth Acevedo, Oliver de la Paz, Kimiko Hahn, Joy Harjo, Dorianne Laux, Naomi Shihab Nye, Afaa Michael Weaver, and others. Presented in collaboration with W. W. Norton & Company, which is celebrating its centenary in 2023. Free and open to the public; closed captioning available. Register here. 

We look forward to gathering with you in the spirit of gratitude and shared hope for the upcoming new year.

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

For Copper Canyon Press’s fiftieth anniversary, Jericho Brown, Cate Marvin, and Mark Bibbins join Carl Phillips and Erin Belieu to discuss the poems they consider to be the best they’ve ever written on Friday, November 17, at 7 p.m. ET in Wollman Hall at The New School (65 West 11th Street, New York, NY 10011). Register here. (Sponsored) 

Closing Tonight: Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize

Submissions for the Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. tonight. 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. The judges are poet Elizabeth Bradfield and climate scientist Kate Marvel, PhD.