News

Jack Gilbert On Horseback Riding/Writing

February 21, 2011

From Jack Gilbert’s 2005 Interview with the Paris Review: “If I’m writing well it comes to an end with an almost-audible click. When I started out I wouldn’t write a poem until I knew the first line and the last line and what it was about and what would make it a success. I was a [...]

12 Dos and Don’ts for the AWP Newbie

February 9, 2011

Taking a page out of Carolyn Kellogg’s article, now that we’re no longer newbies, we thought we’d share our vast AWP knowledge with you. Do share a room with other writers. It’s cheaper, you’ll get all the scoop, and you’ll always have someone to walk you home after a late [...]

Tight Pants

January 24, 2011

In lieu of the recent rise in popularity of “jeggings,” we refer to the New York poet Frank O’Hara for his philosophies on poetry as presented in “Personism: A Manifesto“ I’m not saying that I don’t have practically the most lofty ideas of anyone writing [...]

Woolf on Writers and Readers

December 1, 2010

Excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s famous essay, Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown: “In the course of your daily life this past week you have had far stranger and more interesting experiences than the one I have tried to describe. You have overheard scraps of talk that filled you with amazement. You [...]

Seamus Heaney, Hercules, and Antaeus

November 22, 2010

With Seamus Heaney’s recent publication of Human Chain, we hope you’d also enjoy hearing a little insight into his career as a poet. You can read along with the pdf of the entire speech here. Excerpt from Seamus Heaney’s Birthday Speech: 13th APRIL 2009 “In Greek mythology, [...]

The Great Joyful Swamp

November 20, 2010

From Charles Wright’s introduction to The Best American Poetry 2008 telling us we’d better hop to: Everyone talks about the “great health” of American poetry nowadays. And it’s hard to fault that. There are very few bad poems being published, very few. On the other [...]

Monday or Tuesday

November 15, 2010

A short story (or “sketch,” if you like) by Virginia Woolf from 1921, when she was writing toward the voice she’d eventually fully develop in Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. Her insistence that the imagination is as real as anything else is, well, awesome: Monday or Tuesday [...]

Uplifting News for Our Members

November 9, 2010

Highlights from this BBC Article: On average, a poet has a life-expectancy of only 62 Female poets are more likely to suffer from mental illness than any other type of writer Isn’t this grand? For more insights, visit the BBC [...]