Poetry Jan 26 ‘People’s Poet’ Robert Burns Turns 250 The image of poetry fans gathered in a pub enjoying bagpipes, haggis, drinks and verse is a very Scottish one, but Scotland's national poet Robert Burns has fans worldwide who know there's no better way to honor the man and…
Poetry Dec 24 Poetry at Obama’s Inauguration It has been widely noted that President-elect Barack Obama is a reader of poetry. Only days after winning the election, Mr. Obama was spotted with a copy of Derek Walcott's collected poems.
Poetry Oct 03 Oregon Poet Laureate Inada Reflects on Internment Along with more than 100,000 other Japanese-Americans, Lawson Inada was sent to internment camps for the duration of World War II. He was one of the youngest to live in the camps, and much of his writing addresses that childhood…
Poetry Apr 08 Mary Jo Bang Examines Grief’s Poetic Form Mary Jo Bang is professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program at Washington University. Her fifth book, "Elegy," which won of the National Book Critics Circle Award, examines the pain and grief following the death of her…
Poetry Mar 03 Poetry of Li-Young Lee Is ‘Descended from Dreamers’ Li-Young Lee was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents who had been exiled from China. After fleeing the regime of Indonesian President Sukarno in 1959 through Hong Kong, Macau and Japan, his family settled in the United States in…
Poetry Dec 15 Galway Kinnell on the Pleasures of Ordinary Things Poet Galway Kinnell reads "Why Regret?" a poem from his new book about "engaging ourselves with the common acts, the ordinary things, the other creatures."…