Watch 6:40
The ‘existential wound’ that fueled poet Natasha Trethewey’s acclaimed career
Natasha Trethewey is a two-time U.S. poet laureate and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her collection “Native Guard.” Now, she has written a memoir about her childhood, the murder of her mother and her own career calling. Titled…
Watch 2:25
Why this poet says there is no ‘single story spun on a single tongue’
Erica Dawson, a professor and writer, said she was surprised while on book tour recently to be faced with the same question over and over again, about speaking for “the black experience.” Black poets "never went away. We don’t only…
Watch 5:11
This poet put the Yazidi women’s suffering and strength into words
Learning about the horrors endured by Yazidi women at the hands of the Islamic State awakened something personal for Iraqi-American poet and former journalist Dunya Mikhail. In her book "The Beekeeper," she shares first-hand accounts of their pain and heroism.
Watch 3:06
Poet Franny Choi on the value of imagining alternate realities
What’s the value of asking questions to which we don’t know the answer? Poet Franny Choi’s “Introduction to Quantum Theory” does just that, and she calls it “one of the scariest things” she’s ever written. Choi offers her brief but…
Prolific poet and biographer Tom Clark died this month at the age of 77, leaving behind a substantial body of writing that exemplifies his penchants for lyricism, wit, and brevity, as well as a lifelong love of baseball.
"The light doesn’t care how tall the fence is; it’s not hemmed in by steel bars or officers’ uniforms. It cannot be forgotten," Galal El-Behairy writes in a poem from Cairo's Tora Prison.
Hall, a candid, unaffected writer who examined love, loss and rural American life, died Saturday at the age of 89.
Poet Jason Reynolds offers sage advice to graduates ... and the rest of us.
Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil writes a love letter to the planet in her latest poetry collection "Oceanic."…
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