Monday, September 1, 2008

Poetry Daily Newsletter September 1, 2008

Contents
  1. Letter from the Editors
  2. Sponsor Messages:
    • Perugia Press Prize
    • Kinereth Gensler Awards 2008
    • A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize contest
    • Tupelo Press $10,000 Dorset Prize
    • Shenandoah 58/2, Fall, 2008
    • Academy of American Poets: 2008 Poets Forum
    • Poetry Out Loud 2009 launches this month!
    • Selections from back issues of The Kenyon Review!
    • Sanibel Island Writers Conference 2008
    • More....
  3. Poetry news links
  4. Selected new arrivals
  5. This week’s featured poets
  6. Last week’s featured poets
  7. Last year’s featured poets
  8. Two poems
Subscription Information

1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

On Tuesday we continue our series of prose features with the latest edition of Marion K. Stocking's Books in Brief, from the fall issue of Beloit Poetry Journal: "Translation: Text and Context," reviewing books by Mahmoud Darwish and Fady Joudah:

"Although the poems of Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish captured me first by their lyric power, I cannot read them without remembering history. Since the 1947 partition of Palestine to create the state of Israel three-quarters of the land reserved then to the Palestinians has been appropriated by Israeli settlements and restraints such as the separation wall. Darwish's homeland is by many accounts the most crucial tension area in today's tense world. The Palestinian people consider Darwish something like a poet laureate. What better guide can I imagine into this region in crisis than a poet whose work is not primarily polemical but nevertheless speaks compellingly from its cultural and political nexus. Darwish, like Yeats, understands that the quarrel with others produces rhetoric, the quarrel with oneself, poetry."

Look for it on Tuesday on our news page.

We hope you enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,


Don Selby & Diane Boller
Editors


2. Sponsor Messages

* Perugia Press Prize
A prize of $1000 and publication by Perugia Press is given annually for a first or second unpublished poetry collection by a woman. Submit manuscripts with a $22 entry fee between August 1 and November 15. Send an
e-mail, SASE, or visit us online for complete guidelines.
 
The 2008 winner, Two Minutes of Light, by Nancy K. Pearson, is now available from our web site.
 
Perugia Press Prize
P.O. Box 60364
Florence, MA  01062
info@perugiapress.com

* Kinereth Gensler Awards 2008
Alice James Books welcomes submissions for the Kinereth Gensler Awards. Poetry manuscripts of 50–70 pages will be accepted with a $25 entry fee. The award is open to poets living in New England, New York or New Jersey (starting no later than December 1 2008). Postmark deadline is October 1 2008. Winners receive $2000, publication and serve a 3 year term on the Alice James Books Editorial Board. For detailed submission guidelines and more information about Alice James Books, please visit us online ....

* Tupelo Press $10,000 Dorset Prize
Tupelo Press $10,000 Dorset Prize: submissions accepted through December 15, 2008 (postmark)
Judge Ilya Kaminsky. Full guidelines online ....

* A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize contest
BOA Editions welcomes your submission to the eighth annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize contest. The winner of this first-book award will receive $1500 and publication in our New Poets of America Series. This year's judge is Thomas Lux. Entries are accepted between August 1 and November 30, 2008. Submit one copy of your manuscript, our entry form, and the $25 entry fee to BOA Editions, PO Box 30971, Rochester, NY 14603. The winner will be announced in March 2009. Order forms and additional information are available online ....

* Shenandoah 58/2, Fall, 2008
"Atlantic Flyway to Whirl is King: An Interview with Brendan Galvin" and six new Galvin poems plus poems by Thomas Reiter, Paula Brady, David Wagoner, James Arthur, Erika Meitner, Megan Ronan, Michael Jenkins, Stephen Gibson, William Aarnes, Jake Willard-Crist, Alice Friman, Cori Winrock, Mary Oliver, Jeff Hoffman and Jeanne Murray Walker. Visit Shenandoah ...

* Academy of American Poets: 2008 Poets Forum
Join the Academy of American Poets in New York, Nov. 6–8, for the 2008 Poets Forum, a 3-day exploration of contemporary poetry in America. Events include discussion sessions with distinguished poets, readings, literary walking tours of New York City, and more. Participants include Frank Bidart,Victor Hernández Cruz, Louise Glück, Lyn Hejinian, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Robert Pinsky, U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, Gary Snyder, and others. Purchase tickets online ....

*Poetry Out Loud 2009 launches this month!
2007-2008 has been an extraordinary year for Poetry Out Loud with more than 200,000 students participating. Each state coordinator is just about to launch the 2009 Poetry Out Loud program in schools across the country next month. This year we welcome Puerto Rico to a competition that already includes 50 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. Visit the Poetry Out Loud Website for a gallery of this year’s finalists and the NEA website....

* Selections from back issues of The Kenyon Review!
Did you know that you can read selections from back issues of The Kenyon Review on the KR website?  Visit us online to find selections from the past ten years of publications. Don’t miss Lewis Hyde’s new afterword for the 25th anniversary edition of his important book, The Gift, from the Winter 2008 issue.

* Sanibel Island Writers Conference 2008
November 6-9, 2008, Sanibel Island, FL. Workshops & panels in fiction, memoir, poetry, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, songwriting, and children's lit ($350).  Lynne Barrett, Eve Bridburg, Jim Brock, Ron Carlson, Camille Cline, John Dufresne, Beth Ann Fennelly, William Giraldi, Stephanie Griest, Jeanne Leiby, John McNally, Leonard Nash, Sena Jeter Naslund, Neal Pollack, John K. Samson, Christopher Schelling, Michael Steinberg, Ian Vasquez. Visit us online for registration info, or call (239) 590-7421.

* Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference
For Poets With a Book-Length Manuscript: first conference to provide the faculty, connections, and method necessary to set poets with a completed or in-process manuscript on a path towards publication.
 
Faculty includes editors and publishers Jeffrey Levine (Tupelo Press), Martha Rhodes (Four Way Books), Jeffrey Shotts (Graywolf Press), Susan Kan (Perugia Press), Peter Conners (BOA) and others; workshop leaders include Joan Houlihan (Concord Poetry Center); Frederick Marchant (Suffolk University), Ellen Doré Watson (Smith College), Steven Cramer (Lesley University), Daniel Tobin (Emerson College) and others.

* Palm Beach Poetry Festival: Workshop Signup
Palm Beach Poetry Festival, January 19-24, 2009, Old School Square, Delray Beach, FL. Advanced Workshops ($725): Martin Espada, Kimiko Hahn, Laura Kasischke, Thomas Lux, Anne Marie Macari, Gregory Orr and Gerald Stern; Intermediate Workshops: ($525) Denise Duhamel and Victoria Redel. Workshops, limited to 12 poets, include conference, readings and gala party. Visit us online for application and guidelines or phone Call (561) 868-2063. Application deadline: October 31, 2008.

* The Bennington Graduate Writing Seminars
Founded in 1994 by poet Liam Rector, building on the long-standing literary tradition of Bennington College (Bernard Malamud, Robert Frost, W.H. Auden, and Theodore Roethke all taught there at one time) the Bennington Writing Seminars was named "one of the top 5 low-residency MFA programs in the country" in 2007 by The Atlantic Monthly. Students work closely with four Core Faculty instructors over as many terms and attend five 10-day residencies, held on Bennington College’s Vermont campus, in January and June. A reading-intensive program that confers an MFA degree in Writing and Literature, our informal motto is: "Read one hundred books. Write one."


3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

  • Mary Karr introduces a poem by John Engman. (The Washington Post)
  • Langdon Hammer reviews The Modern Element and Invasions, criticism and poetry by Adam Kirsch. (The New York Times)
  • Ted Kooser introduces a poem by D. Nurkse. (American Life in Poetry)
  • Katie Donovan, poet, and Katriona Goldstone, of Create, talk with Vincent Woods about Grace Paley's life and career. (Audio from The Arts Show and RTÉ Radio 1)
  • Vincent Woods talks with Glyn Maxwell about his contemporary verse play, Liberty, an adaptation of Anatole France's novel Les Dieux ont Soif, opening August 31 at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. (Audio from The Arts Show and RTÉ Radio 1)
  • Claudia Emerson, a past Pulitzer and Carole Weinstein Prize winner, has been named to the post. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
  • And more....

4. Selected New Arrivals

These and other new arrivals are available for purchase via Poetry Daily/Amazon.com.

  • Medea: A New Translation, Euripides, tr. Robin Robertson (Free Press)
  • All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems, Linda Gregg (Graywolf Press)
  • The Snow's Music, Floyd Skloot (Louisiana State University Press)
  • Ballistics, Billy Collins (Random House)
  • Men, Women, and Ghosts, Debora Greger (Penguin)
  • Strange Flesh, William Logan (Penguin)
  • Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid, Simon Armitage (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • Spring, Oni Buchanan (University of Illinois Press)
  • Dropping the Bow: Poems of Ancient India, tr. Andrew Schelling (White Pine Press)
  • Majestic Nights: Love Poems of Bengali Women, tr. Carolyne Wright (White Pine Press)
  • Still, Deborah Burnham (Seven Kitchens Press)
  • Where Time Goes, Sander Zulauf (Dryad Press)
  • She Heads into the Wilderness, Anne Marie Macari (Autumn House Press)
  • Inconsiderate Madness, Helen Marie Casey (Black Lawrence Press)
  • And more...

5. This Week’s Featured Poets

Monday - Kelly Cherry
Tuesday - Billy Collins
Wednesday - Linda Gregg
Thursday - James W. Wood
Friday - Floyd Skloot
Saturday - Rick Campbell
Sunday - John Isles


6. Featured Poets August 25 - August 31, 2008

These and other past featured poets may be found in our archive:

Monday - Claudia Emerson
Tuesday - Claire Crowther
Wednesday - John Koethe
Thursday - Toon Tellegen / tr. Judith Wilkinson
Friday - Stephanie Brown
Saturday - Gary Margolis
Sunday - Sabra Loomis


7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

These poems will be retired from our archive during the coming week.

Bryan Penberthy - "Montage"
Gary Fincke - "The Prophecies of Mathematics"
Donald Platt - "Red Door"
Thom Gunn - "A Sketch of the Great Dejection"
Mary Kinzie - "Sale"
Charles Baudelaire / tr. Keith Waldrop - "A Voyage to Cythera"
Jennifer Atkinson - "Meditation at Smokewood Creek"


8. Poem From Last Year


A Sketch of the Great Dejection

Having read the promise of the hedgerow
the body set out anew on its adventures.
At length it came to a place of poverty,
of inner and outer famine,
                   where all movement had stopped
except for that of the wind, which was continual
and came from elsewhere, from the sea,
moving across unplanted fields and between headstones
in the little churchyard dogged with nettles
where no one came between Sundays, and few then.
The wind was like a punishment to the face and hands.
These were marshes of privation:
the mud of the ditches oozed scummy water,
the grey reeds were arrested in growth,
the sun did not show, even as a blur,
and the uneven lands were without definition
as I was without potent words,
inert.
          I sat upon a disintegrating gravestone.
How can I continue, I asked?
I longed to whet my senses, but upon what?
On mud? It was a desert of raw mud.
I was tempted by fantasies of the past,
but my body rejected them, for only in the present
could it pursue the promise,
                  keeping open to its fulfilment.
I would not, either, sink into the mud,
warming it with the warmth I brought to it,
                  as in a sty of sloth.
My body insisted on restlessness
                  having been promised love,
as my mind insisted on words
                  having been promised the imagination.
So I remained alert, confused and uncomforted.
I fared on and, though the landscape did not change,
it came to seem after a while like a place of recuperation.


Thom Gunn
The Man with Night Sweats
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Copyright © 1992 by Thom Gunn
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.


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