Aug 14 After Charlottesville, people share poems to grieve, resist and understand By Elizabeth Flock Poet Nicole Sealey reads her poem, "In Defense of 'Candelabra with Heads.'"… Continue reading
Aug 07 What does it mean to be multiracial in America? This poet explores how it’s complicated By Elizabeth Flock Charif Shanahan is the son of an Irish-American father and a Moroccan mother. Growing up black and Arab in America was an experience full of "instability," he said, and he's using his new book of poetry to start conversations around… Continue reading
Aug 02 What these Southerners reciting Walt Whitman verses can teach us about America By Elizabeth Flock For her new project "Whitman in Alabama," Jennifer Crandall spent two years crisscrossing the state and asking Alabamians to recite Whitman to find the threads that tie us together as a nation. Continue reading
Jul 24 This poet’s obsession with death led her to write about how to live By Elizabeth Flock Nicole Sealey's new poetry collection asks us if, like the Greek figure of Sisyphus, we can find contentment even when life is difficult and absurd… Continue reading
Jul 17 The rage and rebellion of the Detroit riots, captured in one poem By Elizabeth Flock Fifty years ago this month, a protest in Detroit turned into a riot, which turned into five days of violence that left dozens dead, thousands arrested and a city engulfed in flames. The poem "They Feed They Lion" chronicles the… Continue reading
Jul 10 How we fail to humanize war By Elizabeth Flock Poet and playwright Harry Newman said we need to better understand how the countries we go to war with are often a lot like us. "Those are connections we don't make, or we're not encouraged to make. And those are… Continue reading
Jul 03 This poem grapples with America’s complicated identity By Elizabeth Flock "I think of the U.S. as an adolescent country. It's not the old, wise European country, or very young either, it's somewhere in the middle," poet Dorianne Laux says. Continue reading
Jun 26 This writer is erasing ‘Infinite Jest’ to find the poetry left behind By Elizabeth Flock Page by page, Jenni B. Baker makes poems out of David Foster Wallace's novel "Infinite Jest" by erasing much of the text, and creating a new piece of writing from what's left behind. Continue reading
Jun 19 Have we been taught poetry all wrong? By Elizabeth Flock Poet Matthew Zapruder say that we are too often asked to find the "hidden meanings" in poems, as if a poem is a riddle. Continue reading
Jun 12 Why this poet is posting meaningless verse on Instagram By Elizabeth Flock Thom Young, a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, launched an experiment to show how easy it is to become a social media star. Continue reading