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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

Our prose selection this week is "Darning" by Beverley Bie Brahic from the May/June issue of PN Review:

"Roaming the library stacks makes me uneasy. Too many books I haven't read. The flesh is sad? Alas. But I've read all the books? Not even close. Getting my bearings in the third (literature) floor's musty pulp-and-paper-smelling undergrowth, I file down a narrow path between stacks to tip a few more books from the shelf."

Look for it here...

Enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller

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2. Sponsor Messages

 15th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival
15th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival - Delray Beach, Florida, January 21-26, 2019. Focus on your work with 8 of America’s most celebrated poets: Ellen Bass, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Stuart Dischell, Aracelis Girmay, Campbell McGrath, Matthew Olzmann, Gregory Pardlo, Eleanor Wilner. Six days of workshops, readings, craft talks, manuscript conferences, panel discussion, social events and so much more. Special Guest, Sharon Olds, Poet At Large, Tyehimba Jess. Visit palmbeachpoetryfestival.org to apply online. Deadline: November 12, 2018.

 Online Poetry Coaching & Mentorship from Warm, Enthusiastic, Accomplished Poets
A OneRoom poetry coach can help you deepen your writing practice, improve your craft, and finish a big project like a chapbook or collection. Poet member Ash Goodwin says: “Oneroom helped me clarify my goals, and I’m ecstatic that in 2017 I completed more than 100 new poems in three different projects. I’ve made rich connections with fellow writers and love that element of community. My coaches offered perspectives, approaches and considerations that have shaped my writing practice for the better in many ways.” You can apply to join the program at https://www.joinoneroom.com/genre/poetry/apply. We look forward to hearing from you!

 Vermont College of Fine Arts MFAs in Writing
Vermont College of Fine Arts offers a traditinal low-residency MFA in Writing program—now celebrating its 35th year—along with a residential MFA in Writing & Publishing program.

  The Litowitz Creative Writing Graduate Program, MFA+MA
This new dual-degree program at Northwestern University offers intimate classes, the opportunity to complete major projects in both creative and critical writing, and close mentorship by acclaimed creative writing faculty in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction and outstanding scholars. Students will receive full support for three academic years (including two summers) to complete the program, which awards both degrees simultaneously—an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English.

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Tobi Haslett reviews The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, by Jeffey C. Stewart. (The New Yorker)
• Jeffrey Grunthaner reviews Nadia de Vries’s Dark Hour. (Hyperallergic)
• Sandra Beasley considers how to teach work by authors with a dark side. (Washington Post)
• Rebecca Foust introduces "Plunder: To a Young Friend," by Linda Pastan. (Women's Voices for Change)
• An obituary for the Beat Generation poet and novelist. (The Guardian)
• Rebecca Bengal profiles the Last Poets. (The Guardian)
• Dai Smith on the poet "now defiantly centre stage in the re-emerging cultural and rooted consciousness which links his Wales... to a wider world." (The Times Literary Supplement)
• And more....

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4. New Arrivals

These new arrivals are available for purchase via Poetry Daily/Amazon.com.

• The Multiverse, Andrew Wynn Owen (Carcanet Press)
• The Terrible: A Storyteller's Memoir, Yrsa Daley-Ward (Penguin Books)
• City of Small Fires, Patty Paine (Hysterical Books)
• Because a Fire in Our Heads, Jay Udall (Texas Review Press)
• A Satisfactory Daughter, Jane Julius Honchell (NYQ Books)
• Synonyms for (OTHER) Bodies, Daryl Sznyter (NYQ Books)
• Somerset, Daniel Donaghy (Somerset)
• WhenThen, Gerd Stern (Dos Madres Press)
• Because Everything Is Terrible, Paul Guest (Diode Editions)
• Snowmen Losing Weight, Noah Falck (BayCat Press)
• Adoption, Adam Falkner (Diode Editions)
• Grimmening, Daniel Blokh (Diode Editions)
• Red Jild Prayer, Hazem Fahmy (Diode Editions)
• Our Lady of the Flood, Alison Pelegrin (Diode Editions)
• A Secret History of World Wide Outage, Elizabeth O'Brien (Diode Editions)
• the empty season, Catherine Bresner (Diode Editions)
• Go because I love you, Jared Harél (Diode Editions)
• Night Fable, Seth Jani (FutureCycle Press)
• Mortal Lullabies, Ken Meisel (FutureCycle Press)
• Letters to the Future: Black Women / Radical Writing, Erica Hunt and Dawn Lundy Martin, ed.s (Kore Press)
• Light Wind Light Light, Bin Ramke (Omnidawn)
• Ghost Of, Diana Khoi Nguyen (Omnidawn)
• Oil Spell, Claire Marie Stancek (Omnidawn)
• The Drunkards, LM Rivera (Omnidawn)
• Subterranean, Richard Greenfield (Omnidawn)
• Something An Atheist Might Bring Up At a Cocktail Party, Charles Rafferty (Mayapple Press)
• Absolute Zero, David Lunde (Mayapple Press)

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5. This Week’s Featured Poets

The work of the following poets will appear as Today's Poem on the days indicated:

Monday - Matthew Thorburn
Tuesday - Donald Revell
Wednesday - Maryann Corbett
Thursday - Hannah Louise Poston
Friday - Julie Bruck
Saturday - Martin Edmunds
Sunday -Nicholas Friedman

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6. Featured Poets May 14, 2018 - May 20, 2018

These and other past featured poets may be found in our archive:

Monday - Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
Tuesday - Monica Sok
Wednesday - Ted Kooser
Thursday - Margaret Gibson
Friday - Jane Satterfield
Saturday - Hayden Saunier
Sunday -Jennifer O'Grady

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

These poems will be retired from our archive during the coming week.

Molly Tenenbaum, "My Lumpy Father"
Michael Chitwood, "His Chair"
Randall Mann, "Proprietary"
Edward Hirsch, "In Memory of Mark Strand"
Kathleen Winter, "Parthenon Marbles"
Jose A. Alcantara, "A Note to Fernando Pessoa"
Eléna Rivera, "July 14th From 80 La Salle"

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8. Poem From Last Year

His Chair

After lunch
and before he went

back to the fields,
he’d catch a nap

there, a quick 15
minutes he said

“percolated him.” He’s in
the fields for good now

and in that chair,
now in my living room,

his sleep keeps
its eyes on me.

 

Michael Chitwood
Shenandoah
Spring 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Michael Chitwood
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission