Revise Like a Painter
The author of [WHITE] considers how writers might take inspiration from visual artists in their approach to revision, pushing beyond surface editing to “see” their work afresh.
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Genre: Poetry
Deadline Nears for Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize
Conduit Books & Ephemera is now accepting submissions for its Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize. Awarded annually for a manuscript by a poet writing in English who has not yet published a full-length poetry collection, the prize offers a cash award of $1,500, publication by Conduit Books & Ephemera, and thirty author copies. Bob Hicok will judge.
Submit a manuscript of 48 to 90 pages with a $25 entry fee by July 5. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Last year’s prize winner was Rachel Abramowitz for her poetry collection, The Birthday of the Dead. Previous winners include Suphil Lee Park, Meg Shevenock, and Michelle Lewis. Launched in 2018, the prize is named for Hicok’s grandmother-in-law. “Marystina Santiestevan loved poetry, labor unions, animals, plants, and poets,” says Hicok. “When I met her and Henry, her husband, I enjoyed a most un-American experience: I was immediately treated as an honored guest in their house, even made to sit in Henry’s chair, just because I was a poet.” Before submitting to the contest, writers are advised to familiarize themselves with Conduit, the biannual journal affiliated with the press which “champions originality, intelligence, irreverence, and humanity.”
Centering Neurodivergent Poets
The Multiverse book series from Milkweed Editions spotlights the work of neurodivergent poets and powerful new ways of “languaging.”
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Small Press Points: rinky dink press
Each no bigger than a deck of cards, rinky dink’s “micro zines” aim to “get poetry back in the hands (and pockets) of the people” and make the genre more accessible.
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Book Prize Celebrates Older Poets
Recognizing that talent and relevance have no age limit, the Henry Morgenthau III First Book Poetry Prize from Passager Books spotlights debuts by poets age seventy and older.
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John Murillo Reads “Mercy, Mercy, Me”
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“Maybe memory is all the home / you get,” reads John Murillo from his poem “Mercy, Mercy, Me” included in his collection Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020) in this video in which he discusses his experience as a fellow at MacDowell’s artist residency program in New Hampshire.
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Still Life
A still life, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a picture consisting predominantly of inanimate objects,” but in Jay Hopler’s Still Life, published in June by McSweeney’s, the term takes on new meaning. Hopler, who was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer in 2017, charges his poems with sharp observations of the body and lyrical ruminations that wander well beyond the traditional associations of a still life. In “still life w/ hands” he writes: “poor dumb lugs what loves you not the butterfly knife not the corkscrew....” In “still life w/ wet gems” he writes from a more fractured perspective: “lightnings bang their jaggeds on the cloud-glower / the cloud-glower is a broken necklace spilling its wet gems / its wet gems w/ facets cut are uncountable / uncountable the reflections of the world in those gems.” Inspired by Hopler’s Still Life, write a still-life poem of your own. Will your poem consider inanimate objects or living things, actions, emotions? Use this exercise as an opportunity to challenge a familiar perspective and consider a new viewpoint.
Adam Zagajewski at the Renaissance Society
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In this 2009 video, the late Polish poet, novelist, and essayist Adam Zagajewski reads from his work and answers questions from the audience for an event at the Renaissance Society, a contemporary art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago.
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Freedom From Genre as Freedom to Write
The author of [WHITE] explores how writing outside one’s primary genre can lead to literary breakthroughs.
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Silo City Reading Series Tenth Anniversary
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This video celebrates the tenth season of the Silo City Reading Series, a poetry reading series that takes place in a complex of historic grain silos in Buffalo, New York and has “held true to the belief of what imagination can do when it acts collectively.” Upcoming events begin this weekend and feature poets Richie Hofmann, Victoria Chang, and Jericho Brown.
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