Mar 08 Poet Sonia Sanchez to receive Edward MacDowell Medal By Hillel Italie, Associated Press The poet, activist and educator Sonia Sanchez is this year’s winner of the Edward MacDowell Medal, a lifetime achievement honor started in 1960 and previously given to Robert Frost, Toni Morrison and Stephen Sondheim among others. Continue reading
Dec 31 ‘Winnie the Pooh,’ ‘Sun Also Rises,’ Hughes poems among works going public in 2022 By Associated Press "Winnie the Pooh" and "The Sun Also Rises" are among the works from 1926 whose copyrights will expire Saturday, putting them in the public domain in 2022. Continue reading
Dec 02 The pandemic has been a roller-coaster ride. This poet captures the feeling By Joshua Barajas Poet Jasmine Gardosi was commissioned by the British charity National Literacy Trust to write a poem about the pandemic. So she performed a poem while riding an actual roller coaster. Continue reading
Nov 28 Watch 7:39 ‘A no holds-barred Elder’: How one man is helping to heal his Indigenous community By Donald Prince, Global Reporting Centre Donald Prince is a counselor and the former Executive Director of the Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation. In this first-person story, he shares past experiences with violence, justice, and addiction. Being a father and writing poetry were crucial steps towards healing. Continue watching
Nov 24 Watch 2:49 Poet recounts ups and downs of the pandemic — on a literal rollercoaster For many Americans, the COVID-19 pandemic has felt like a rollercoaster. Infections have gone down, then back up. Mask mandates were put in place, then dropped and then required again. Poet Jasmine Gardosi was asked by the British charity National… Continue watching
Nov 22 Prominent poet Robert Bly, author of ‘Iron John’, dies at 94 By Steve Karnowski, Associated Press Bly published his first book of poems, "Silence in the Snowy Fields," in 1962. He won the National Book Award in 1968 for "The Light Around the Body," a book of Vietnam War protest poems. Bly donated the $1,000 prize… Continue reading
Oct 11 Watch 3:02 How poetry helps this young Afghan refugee ’empty’ her pains and share her dreams By Rawan Elbaba, Student Reporting Labs October 11 is the International Day of the Girl. Tonight, we hear from one girl, a young Afghan poet, who left her country a few years ago with her family for security reasons. Aryan Ashory now lives in a refugee… Continue watching
Oct 07 Sonia Sanchez wins Gish Prize for lifetime achievement By Associated Press Poet, educator and activist Sonia Sanchez is this year’s winner of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, a $250,000 lifetime achievement honor previously given to Chinua Achebe, Bob Dylan and Maya Lin among others. Continue reading
Oct 04 Watch 6:42 Pakistani musician Arooj Aftab’s ‘neo-Sufi’ music blends Rumi with reggae and more By Tom Casciato The South Asian art form known as Sufi music has a centuries old tradition built on poetry and mysticism coupled with specific instruments, meters and repetition. Brooklyn-based Pakistani musician Arooj Aftab’s neo-Sufism is steeped in that tradition — yet also… Continue watching
Aug 04 Watch 4:10 This advocate says justice system is our failure to imagine anything besides punishment Jorge Antonio Renaud says that the United States is enamored with the idea that certain individuals are just “crime prone.” At 20, he was arrested and put in jail, where he survived a traumatic attack. Feeling lost led him to… Continue watching