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In this Square Books event, Aimee Nezhukumatathil reads from her fifth poetry collection, Night Owl (Ecco, 2026), and talks about the themes of darkness and nighttime in her poems. Nezhukumatathil’s book is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Zipping your skirt, you rustle past, / sand hissing through a glass, / with the bedouin snap and flash / of static-electric / sparks disturbing fabric.” In “Static,” which appears in Bright Thorn: Poems 2000–2026 by Devin Johnston, forthcoming in May from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, sound is a significant component of how meaning is expressed. The poet carefully observes a subject’s actions, capturing the ways in which a single movement or gesture can communicate a vast complexity of sentiment. From the tactility of fabric and the sibilant sounds and motions of “zipping” a skirt to the “sparks” of consonance, an intimate tone is set. Write a poem that employs a variety of sounds to convey the complex feelings within a resonant image or moment. How does the variance in sound and actions create a sense of productive tension?
“I’m looking for my honest response when my eyes first fall upon a poem.” —Bob Hicok, author of Breathe
Poets gather in Black Mountain, North Carolina, to reflect on our climate-changed world.
New Directions, Fitzcarraldo Editions, and Giramondo partner for a new translated poetry prize, connecting literary communities across the globe.
Founded in 2010 at Indiana University in South Bend, 42 Miles Press publishes “stirring, daring” poetry and encourages authors to submit work they “might be afraid to send elsewhere.”
In this trailer for PBS’s American Masters documentary Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined, the life and work of the acclaimed Dominican American poet and novelist is explored through interviews, photographs, and archives. A profile of Alvarez about her new poetry collection, Visitations (Knopf, 2026), appears in the May/June 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
For over forty years Julia Alvarez has told stories that have established hers among the biggest names in contemporary literature. A new book, Visitations, offers a personal, poignant look back while proving she’s nowhere near finished.
The poet Alan Chazaro highlights journals that have published his poems, which meditate on the “physical and social dimensions” of space.
In an essay recently published in the Evergreen Review, Eric Dean Wilson writes about discovering the playful use of metaphors in Robert Glück’s 1985 debut novel, Jack the Modernist. While considering what makes one work, Wilson recalls another writer teaching him about metaphor with a metaphor. “A metaphor, the writer said, is like a spark plug,” he says. “At just the right distance, the electrodes cause a spark to arc across the open air, igniting an explosion. The distance between the electrodes matters.” This week compose a poem that cycles through the process of creating an effective metaphor. You might start with the words, “A metaphor is like….” Allow yourself the freedom to play with language that might feel too convoluted as you gradually move toward the right combination to ignite a spark.
