David Orr, poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review, wrote Beautiful & pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry for me, or for readers very nearly like me: familiar with poetry but not wildly knowledgeable, who write poetry on occasion but are not particularly enthused about publishing it; and who are both aware of […]
Search Results for: poetry at work
National Poetry Month: Ava Leavell Haymon
Ava Leavell Haymon has written three poetry collections — Why the House Is Made of Gingerbread, Kitchen Heat and The Strict Economy of Fire, and published five chapbooks from small presses. She’s also written seven plays for children. She teaches poetry writing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and directs a writers’ retreat center in the mountains […]
National Poetry Month: Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns, professor of English and Director of Creativity Writing at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is the author of six collections of poetry, the memoir Short Trip to the Edge, the non-fiction work The End of Suffering, and numerous articles, essays and even a libretto for an oratorio. I had the distinct pleasure of taking […]
The Poetry of Monopoly
What happens when you mix Monopoly and poetry mashups?
The Poetry of Voting
The mid-term election was last week, and I prepared myself for the process with – a book of poems. While the lines weren’t expected to be long, unlike 2008, I still wanted to be prepared to wait. Voting lines aren’t the best places to make conversation – people are very circumspect; no one wants to […]
Poetry Meets Technology
Marcus Goodyear and Matt Priour have been conspiring over the past several weeks to create a tool – a game, actually – that might be used for TweetSpeak poetry jams, among a lot of other uses. It debuted at TweetSpeak Poetry on Thursday night. And it worked. Anticipation was high. Two of our online poetic […]
National Poetry Month: Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) became widely known and appreciated only after her suicide. She published her first poem at age 18 (in the Christian Science Monitor) and had only one book of poetry, Colossus, published by the time of her death. (Before her death, she had published the semi-autobiographical The Bell Jar under the pseudonym Victoria […]
National Poetry Month: Jack Gilbert
Jack Gilbert (1925 – ) published his first book of poems, Views of Jeopardy, in 1962, and his second, Monolithos, nearly 20 years later. In between he moved to Europe, traveled as a lecturer on American literature for the U.S. State Department. He’s also the author of three other books of poetry: Transgressions: Selected Poems, […]
National Poetry Month: Edna St. Vincent Millay
At the age of 20, Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) entered her poem “Renascence” in a contest and won fourth place, which meant publication in The Lyric Year – and a scholarship to Vassar (makes you wonder what the first place winner received). She graduated in 1917, and that same year published her first volume, […]
National Poetry Month: The Best American Poetry 2009
It takes work to put together an anthology like The Best American Poetry 2009. The editor, in this case David Wagoner, reads scores of literary journals (online and print), general publications, and books of poetry, sifting through literally thousands of poems to select 75 that he or she considers the best of the year. Wagoner, […]
National Poetry Month: T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) is credited with having written the single most influential poetic work of the 20th century, The Waste Land (1922). (Think “April is the cruellest month…”) A native of Missouri (there are Eliot family connections all over St. Louis), he lived in England for most of his life and became a British […]
National Poetry Month: Donald Hall
Donald Hall (1928 – ) attended the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference when he was 16, the year he published his first work. Over his career, he’s published numerous works of poetry; written several works of non-fiction, including two biographies; written several children’s books; edited numerous anthologies and textbooks; written short stories; and was named U.S. […]
National Poetry Month: Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich (1929 – ) is no stranger to controversy. During the 1960s, her poetry became more confrontational, exploring women’s issues, racism and the Vietnam War. In 1973, she published Diving Into the Wreck, which won the National Book Award for poetry and which Rich shared with her fellow nominees Alica Walker and Audre Lord. […]
T. S. Poetry Press
T. S. Poetry Press is an award-winning publisher that publishes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. We do not accept solicitations or queries, but rather work through established networks to discover and bring beautiful work to light. As part of our mission, the Press also emphasizes “poetry for life, ” with initiatives that support The 5 Vital […]
National Poetry Month: Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967) wrote 14 books of poetry, three books of poetry in translation, innumerable plays that have been published in some 11 works, letters, short stories, novels – an incredibly productive and creative career. All of his work, collectively and individually, represent a profound chronicle of African-American life from the 1920s to […]
National Poetry Month: Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967) is another writer whose poetry, like Walt Whitman and Robert Frost’s, could qualify him as “America’s Poet.”
National Poetry Month: John Ashbery
John Ashbery (1927 – ) has won just about every poetry prize there is to win: the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, the Grand Prix de Biennales Internationales de Poésie (the first English-language poet to win), the Bollingen Prize, the English […]
National Poetry Month: Gary Soto
Need poetry teaching resources? Check out our collection of poets, poems, and poetry classroom discussions led by poets and professors.
National Poetry Month: Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) published her first poem in a children’s magazine when she was 13; by 17, she had some 75 published poems in her portfolio. At 33, she received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the first African-American to achieve that honor. In 1985, she was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress. […]
National Poetry Month: Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) has been called “America’s Poet.” When he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 (and he kept revising and republishing it for a long time), he changed the direction of American poetry and letters. For decades, some of his poems were memorized in schoolrooms across the United States. Time […]