Mary Jo Bang is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently A Doll for Throwing (Graywolf Press, 2017) and a translation of Dante’s Inferno illustrated by Henrik Drescher. She teaches creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis. Read another new poem by Mary Jo Bang here. 

Academy of American Poets First Book Award 

Submissions are open for the 2021 Academy of American Poets First Book Award, the nation’s most generous first-book prize for poetry, judged by Claudia Rankine. The winner will receive $5,000 and a six-week all-expenses-paid residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Italy. The winning manuscript will be published by Graywolf Press in 2022. Submit by November 16.

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week:
A Reading with Toi Derricotte, Anastacia Renee, Steven Leyva, & More 

Don’t miss our #PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week: Soul Sister Revue presents the next installment of its quarterly reading series for established and emerging poets. Readers include former Academy of American Poets Chancellor Toi Derricotte, Anastacia Renee, Steven Leyva, Safia Jama, and Natalie Wee. Friday, November 6, at 7 p.m. EST. Free with registration. 

Vote the Earth Project 

November, a Film Written by Claudia Rankine 
 

Book Recommendations from Tina Cane, Poet Laureate of Rhode Island

Tina Cane is the author of Once More with Feeling (Veliz Books, 2017). She is the founder and director of Writers-in-the-Schools, Rhode Island, and is the poet laureate of Rhode Island. Read about Cane’s Poets Laureate Fellowship project here. Tina Cane is currently reading Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry by John Murillo, (Four Way Books), and In the Lateness of the World by Carolyn Forche, (Penguin Press, 2020). 

“Murillo’s poems are intimate and tangible, a series of searing commentary on the state of Amerika and all the states of being within it. I keep imagining a hand reaching out of the page to shake me, to shake my hand. This collection had me riveted from the first line: ‘Not sleepwalking, but waking still.’

I feel like Forche is teaching me as I read. It takes a master to create poems that are quiet and beautiful, but which express urgency and the force of history. There’s a deep morality expressed in this collection.”

Heid E. Erdrich on Curating Poem-a-Day 

 “It’s hard not to anticipate a difficult time and I want these poems to guide readers during uncertainty.”

—Heid E. Erdrich, author of Little Big Bully (Penguin Editions, 2020), and Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for the month of November.