May 07 How Zora Neale Hurston captured the poetry of African-American folklife By Jennifer Hijazi A long-lost manuscript by the famed author is finally being published. Continue reading
Apr 30 The poet laureate wants you to read this poem By Jennifer Hijazi "There is so much noise in our culture. So many frantic, angry, unreliable voices.... Poetry is an antidote to that."… Continue reading
Apr 24 A poet’s love letters to the outdoors By Jennifer Hijazi Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil writes a love letter to the planet in her latest poetry collection "Oceanic."… Continue reading
Apr 16 In a Florida prison, a poet grapples with power and oppression By Corinne Segal In poet Eduardo Martinez's work, power is a trap; being ruled by it is a trap, and wielding it is, too, a dynamic that he said he confronts every day in prison. Continue reading
Mar 16 Watch 5:06 To Arizona’s first poet laureate, ‘the border is what joins us’ By PBS News Hour Across his life, Alberto Rios has seen enormous changes throughout the U.S.-Mexico border region, and its culture and language have shaped him as a writer. Now as Arizona's first poet laureate, Rios has a platform for his "poems of public… Continue watching
Mar 12 The homeland left behind, captured in a poem By Jennifer Hijazi For Shauna Barbosa and other poets of the Cape Verdean diaspora, the longing for a far-away home is an important theme. Continue reading
Mar 08 Watch 3:20 This poet wants brown girls to know they’re worthy of being the hero and the author By PBS News Hour For girls who didn't grow up seeing themselves as the main characters of books, award-winning poet Elizabeth Acevedo wants them to know that their stories are just as important as any other. Acevedo shares her Brief but Spectacular take on… Continue watching
Feb 26 This poet imagines black victims of police violence ‘alive someplace better’ By Jennifer Hijazi Danez Smith sees another life for the black victims of police violence: at last living in a world where blackness is celebrated and “everything/is a sanctuary & nothing is a gun.”… Continue reading
Feb 19 ‘What we did while we made more guns’ confronts the violence of extreme belief By Jennifer Hijazi Dorothy Barresi's “What We Did While We Made More Guns” examines Americans’ anxieties and moral uncertainties in poems on international torture, war and police brutality. Continue reading
Feb 13 For Valentine’s Day, put down your phone and face your feelings with these poems By Jennifer Hijazi We are more connected than ever, but poet Matthew Siegel finds it’s made communication and knowing our own feelings more difficult. Continue reading