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Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. — Mary Oliver The beloved American poet, Mary Oliver, died Thursday of lymphoma at her home in Hobe Sound, Florida. She was 83. From NPR: Oliver got a lot…
Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass, His Dark Materials) spends some time at The Guardian this weekend, asking why we believe in magic. The result is beautiful. The universe of magic is a large place. It contains phenomena ranging from simple good luck…
Some “medicine for the soul” comes to us via Huffington Post in the form of a collection of “12 Awe-Inspiring Poets To Read In Your Lifetime.” Poets have a way of evoking life’s most complex philosophies in just a few short lines….
Acclaimed poet and literary critic J.D. “Sandy” McClatchy died Tuesday night at home in Manhattan after a long battle with cancer. He was 72. McClatchy was the author of eight volumes of poetry, including Hazmat, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer…
Lucie Brock-Broido the award-winning author of four acclaimed volumes of poetry including A Hunger (1988) and Stay, Illusion (2013) died on Tuesday at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was 61. Brock-Broido was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment…
What would happen if you reimagined all of your favorite pop songs as sonnets? If you’re thinking about that now, just stop: it’s already been done. We’re late to the party: Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs (Quirk Books) was…
Steph Burt (who also goes by Stephen and Stephanie) and Carmen Giménez Smith have been added to the masthead of The Nation as poetry editors. From The Nation: In their new roles, Burt and Giménez Smith will solicit and commission a…
When The Best American Poetry 2015 (Scribner), edited by Sherman Alexie, was published earlier this week, it included a poem from “Yi-Fen Chou.” It turns out that Chou is the pen name of a very-not-Asian writer called Michael Derrick Hudson. From The…
The Poetry Foundation names a Young People’s Poet Laureate every two years. In 2015, the $25,000 laureate title has been awarded to Jacqueline Woodson. “Jacqueline Woodson is an elegant, daring, and restlessly innovative,” says Poetry Foundation president Robert Polito.“So many writers settle…
Alice Notley has been awarded the 2015 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Established in 1986, the prize recognizes the outstanding lifetime achievement of a living U.S. poet. At $100,000, it is also one of the nation’s largest literary prizes. The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is…