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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

This week our prose series continues with Ange Mlinko's "A Quick Laugh Like the Sun,"on Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry, by Joan Murray (Poetry):

"'This book is especially for all young women poets who see themselves in her.' Those that do might find themselves shaken at the purity of purpose that once characterized the literary acolyte, and which is almost impossible to recover in these days."

Look for it here.

Enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller

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2. Sponsor Messages

 Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins

Write the next chapter of an epic.
Talented faculty. Visiting writers. Writer-in-Residence.
Graduate Assistantships, Teaching Fellowships,
Travel Funding, and Full Scholarships. 

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing
More than fifty years of achievement in poetry,
Fiction, and nonfiction. 

Bachelor of Arts with concentration or Minor in creative writing
Where students mature into authors. 

Most of all, a vibrant, supportive community.
https://hollinsmfa.wordpress.com/first-child/.

 $1,000 and Book Publication from BkMk Press
Enter the annual John Ciardi Prize for Poetry and the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, awarded to the best collections of poetry and short fiction in English by a living author. Submission deadline: January 15, 2019. Click here for guidelines.

BkMk Press
University of Missouri-Kansas City
5101 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110

 2019 UNT Rilke Prize
The 2019 UNT Rilke Prize, a $10,000 award recognizing the artistry and vision of a collection written by a mid-career poet, is accepting submissions through November 30, 2018. The winner will visit the University of North Texas April 3-4, 2019.  Previous winners: Laura Kasischke, Paisley Rekdal, Katie Peterson, Mark Wunderlich, Rick Barot, Wayne Miller, and Allison Benis White.

 Writing Program of Columbia University
At the Writing Program of Columbia University, individual achievement and a strong sense of community go hand in hand. Our poetry workshops encourage students to develop their own unique sensibilities and to help promote the progress of their peers, while our seminars offer rigorous study of poetic traditions and recent innovations alike, grounding our students’ practice in a shared engagement with the works of the past and present as they realize, together, poetry’s future.

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Amit Chaudhuri on getting past the trauma of modernism. (Los Angeles Review of Books)
• Rebecca Foust introduces "Why They Went," by Elizabeth Bradfield. (Women's Voices for Change)
• Arthur Smith, 70 (KnoxTNToday.com)
• New collections by Matthew Sweeney, Micheal O’Siadhail, and Jane Robinson reviewed by John McAuliffe. (The Irish Times)
• Tracy K. Smith honored with 2018 Hall-Kenyon Prize in American Poetry. (NHPR)
• Dwight Garner reviews Natasha Trethewey's Monument: Poems New and Selected. (The New York Times)
• Lauren LeBlanc interviews Natasha Trethewey. (Paris Review Daily)
• And more...

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4. New Arrivals

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

• The Long Take: A Noir Narrative, Robin Robertson (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Reenactments, Hai-Dang Phan (Sarabande Books)
• View from True North, Sara Henning (Southern Illinois University Press)
• The Promised Land, Philip S. Bryant (Nodin Press)
• Threshold: New and Selected Poems, Cary Waterman (Nodin Press)
• Yellow Crane, Susan Gillis (Brick Books)
• Good Morning America I Am Hungry and on Fire, Jamie Mortara (YesYes Books)
• Kissing Caskets, Mahogany L. Browne (YesYes Books)
• One Above One Below: Positions and Lamentations, Gala Mukomolova (YesYes Books)
• Afternoon Drinking at the Jolly Butchers, Rachel Coventry (Salmon Poetry)
• The English River: A Journey Down the Thames in Poems & Photographs, Virginia Astley (Bloodaxe Books)
• What Persists: Selected Essays on Poetry from The Georgia Review, 1988-2014, Judith Kitchen (University of Georgia 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 - Jennifer Metsker
Tuesday - Cynthia Cruz
Wednesday - Tim Carrier
Thursday - Gabriella Torres
Friday - Layli Long Soldier
Saturday - Blanca Castellón
Sunday - Mary Donnelly

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6. Featured Poets November 5 - November 11, 2018

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

Monday - Charles Simic
Tuesday - Alice Oswald
Wednesday - Rebecca Perry
Thursday - Alice Major
Friday - Ryan Wilson
Saturday - Patrick Phillips
Sunday - Sarah Barber

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

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

Pablo Neruda tr, William O'Daly, "I Had Not Seen It"
Catherine Pierce, "Anthropocene Pastoral"
Bruce Smith, "Garden"
David Wojahn, "Still Life: Stevens's Wallet on a Key West Hotel Dresser"
Lynn Melnick, "Landscape with Stucco and Dandelion"
Christian Wiman, "Doing Lines at the Cocktail Party"
Warren Slesinger, "Margin"

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8. Poem From Last Year

Anthropocene Pastoral

In the beginning, the ending was beautiful.
Early spring everywhere, the trees furred
pink and white, lawns the sharp green
that meant new. The sky so blue it looked
manufactured. Robins. We’d heard
the cherry blossoms wouldn’t blossom
this year, but what was one epic blooming
when even the desert was an explosion
of verbena? When bobcats slinked through
primroses. When coyotes slept deep in orange
poppies. One New Year’s Day we woke
to daffodils, wisteria, onion grass wafting
through the open windows. Near the end,
we were eyeletted. We were cottoned.
We were sundressed and barefoot. At least
it’s starting gentle, we said. An absurd comfort,
we knew, a placebo. But we were built like that.
Built to say at least. Built to reach for the heat
of skin on skin even when we were already hot,
built to love the purpling desert in the twilight,
built to marvel over the pink bursting dogwoods,
to hold tight to every pleasure even as we
rocked together toward the graying, even as
we held each other, warmth to warmth,
and said sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry while petals
sifted softly to the ground all around us.

Catherine Pierce
American Poetry Review
January/February 2018

Copyright © 2017 by Catherine Pierce
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission