"I make peace with this being a beginning"

January 3, 2024

Beginnings

Consider the new month and year with these poems reflecting on beginnings:

“It’s 6 am & the Sun Is Out” by KB Brookins
“The Seedling” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
“To the Linear” by Myronn Hardy
“Let Me Begin Again” by Major Jackson
“Madrigal for the newly pregnant” by Alice Notley
“Recurrence” by Dorothy Parker
“in our chant of the creation of the world” by leilani portillo
“The Index” by Rena Priest
“Beginnings” by Mahtem Shiferraw
“I Am Bound, I Am Bound, For A Distant Shore” by Henry David Thoreau

Poets Born in January

“New Year’s Verses” by Philip Freneau (January 2, 1752)
“April Inventory” by W. D. Snodgrass (January 5, 1926)
“Youth and Age” by Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883)
“Life” by Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862)

“I wanted to share poems by poets whose language, whose poetic language, I love. In my solicitation, I specifically asked for that particular music to remind readers that poetry is not transactional.”

Please join us in welcoming Dante Micheaux as our Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for January. He is the author of Circus (Indolent Books, 2018), which won the Four Quartets Prize from the Poetry Society of America and the T. S. Eliot Foundation, and Amorous Shepherd (Syracuse University Press, 2010). Read and listen to a Q&A with Micheaux about his Poem-a-Day curatorial approach.

“The Second Beautiful Harvest”
“The Day Room”
“Apples”

more at poets.org

Open Call for 2024 Guggenheim Poet-in-Residence

In collaboration with the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Museum is seeking a contemporary poet with strong interests in art and public engagement for its third annual Poet-in-Residence position. Applications to the 2024 residency are being accepted online through January 31, 2024.

more at poets.org

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week

Come celebrate the centennial of Max Roach with a reimagined performance of We Insist!: Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, his revolutionary 1960 album that explored issues of social justice and racial inequality through the lenses of jazz and poetry, on Friday, January 26, at 8 p.m. ET at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (1 Center Street, Newark, NJ 07102). Buy tickets here. (Sponsored)

2024 Ambroggio Prize

The Ambroggio Prize is a $1,000 publication prize given for a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation. The winning manuscript will be published by University of Arizona Press in 2025. The 2024 Ambroggio Prize will be judged by Norma Elia Cantú. Learn more here and apply by February 15, 2024 (11:59 p.m. ET).

2024 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award

The Harold Morton Landon Translation Award is a $1,000 award recognizing a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in the previous calendar year. The 2024 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award will be judged by Valzhyna Mort. Learn more here and apply by February 15, 2024 (11:59 p.m. ET).

New College of Florida in Sarasota is seeking an assistant professor of creative writing.
Shelf Awareness in Seattle is seeking a full-time publishing assistant. To apply, email a resume to gigs@shelf-awareness.com.
The Museum of Modern Art is seeking a full-time editorial director.

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

December 24: “Journey of the Magi” by T. S. Eliot
December 25: “Habitable Nebula” by Timothy Donnelly
December 26: “Porcelain Musician in a Child’s Bedroom” by Brenda Hillman
December 27: “[Sun-messenger]” by Lynn Xu
December 28: “Weathering Hate” by Harryette Mullen
December 29: “Expulsion” by Cal Bedient
December 30: “Winter Song” by Wilfred Owen

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"I make peace with this being a beginning"

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"Peridot" by Richard Scott

"Bogeymen" by Amanda Johnston

"If Night You Were a City" by Adam Wiedewitsch

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