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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

Our prose editor is on holiday this week. Look for our next prose feature on Monday, November 28...

Enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller

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2. Sponsor Messages

Instant Messages
Instant Messages is a new kind of writing, a mash-up of straightforward and accessible poetry, koan-like brain teasers, the delicate observations of Haiku, surprise one-liners, daily mumbling, text-based art, and aphorisms of penetrating insight. All wrapped together in a common theme: things and experience are “messages,.” where meaning awaits.

" Bite-sized wisdom on an invisible stick"
—Billy Collins

Develop Your Work’s Fullest Potential:
The Rainier Writing Workshop
RWW is one of the premier low-residency MFA programs in the country. Based at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, ours is a 3-year program with a once-a-year summer residency and year-long mentorships.  Come study fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with our stellar faculty.  Scholarships and fellowships awarded.  We have an early-decision deadline of November 30 and a regular-admission deadline of February 15.

Write more poetry with help from award-winning poet Hannah Sanghee Park
Join OneRoom and get personalized coaching from award-winning poet, Hannah Sanghee Park. As your coach, Hannah will: help you define your writing goals and craft a writing plan, check in with you to keep you accountable to your writing, and provide the advice and motivation you need to improve your craft and finish big projects. Space is limited, so admission is by application only. Coaching fee is $49 per month. Apply here: https://www.joinoneroom.com/group/poetry-hpark/apply

Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
June 3-9, 2016—Specializing in the literary translation of poetry and prose. Award-winning translators Esther Allen, Geoffrey Brock, Jennifer Grotz, Karen Emmerich, and David Hinton will offer introductory and advanced workshops along with an inspiring schedule of readings and lectures all in the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains. See application details at www.middlebury.edu/blwc/bltc.

$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, 2017. Click here for guidelines.
BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 5101 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110
www.umkc.edu/bkmk

13th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival in Delray Beach, Florida, January 16-21, 2017 (deadline extended)
Focus on your work with 9 of America’s most celebrated poets: David Baker, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Tina Chang, Lynn Emanuel, Daisy Fried, Terrance Hayes, Dorianne Laux, Carl Phillips, Martha Rhodes. Six days of workshops, readings, craft talks, manuscript conferences, panel discussion, social events and so much more. Special Guest, Charles Simic.
Visit www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org to appy for a workshop online. Extended deadline: November 21, 2016.

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

Pleiades Press Book Contests: Now Reading Poetry & Prose
Lena–Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize: A prize of $2,000 and publication by Pleiades Press.. Jaswinder Bolina will judge. Submit a manuscript with a $25 entry fee, which includes a free book from the press, by Nov. 15.
Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prose (Fiction & Nonfiction): A prize of $2,000 and publication by Pleiades Press for a collection of short stories, flash fiction, essays, or lyric essays. Jenny Boully will judge. Submit a manuscript with a $25 entry fee by Nov. 15. 
Visit PleiadesPress.org for complete guidelines.

2017 UNT Rilke Prize
The 2017 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, 2016. The winner will visit the University of North Texas April 12-13, 2017. Previous winners: Laura Kasischke, Paisley Rekdal, Katie Peterson, Mark Wunderlich, and Rick Barot.
Visit our Web site for guidelines or email UNTrilkeprize@unt.edu
Contact: Lisa Vining

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Kate Kellaway interviews Ben Lerner. (The Guardian)
• My Grandmother’s Glass Eye, by Craig Raine, reviewed by Sarah Crown. (The Guardian)
• Writing the Sky: Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy, by edited by Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper, reviewed by Michael O'Loughlin. (The Irish Times)
• "Angry, difficult D. H. Lawrence" - Seamus Perry reviews recent books. (The Times Literary Supplement)
• Jonathan Galassi reads Frederick Seidel on the latest Poetry Podcast. (The New Yorker)
• "... be kind to everybody, make art, and fight the power" - Cassie da Costa on "a historically black National Book Awards." (The New Yorker)
• Elizabeth Lund's list of best poetry collections of 2016. (The Washington Post)
• And more...

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4. Selected New Arrivals

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

• Naming Thy Name: Cross Talk in Shakespeare's Sonnets, Elaine Scarry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Selected Poems 1968-2014, Paul Muldoon (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Lady Be Good, Lauren Hilger (Civil Coping Mechanisms)
• Count the Waves (new in paperback), Sandra Beasley (W. W. Norton & Company)
• Life As It, Daneen Wardrop (Ashland Poetry Press)
• Stomata, Genevieve Lehr (Brick Books)
• Selected Poems, Michael Gessner (FutureCycle Press)
• Diaspora: Selected and New Poems, Frank Varela (Arte Público Press)
• The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries, Roland Greene, Stephen Cushman ed.s (Princeton University 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 - Ted Kooser
Tuesday - Stanley Plumly
Wednesday - Steve Kronen
Thursday - Kay Cosgrove
Friday - Ron Smith
Saturday - Anne Pierson Wiese
Sunday - Mary Elder Jacobsen

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6. Featured Poets November 14 - November 20, 2016

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

Monday - Jeff Coughter
Tuesday - Sarah V. Schweig
Wednesday - Carol Ann Davis
Thursday - Sally Ball
Friday - Mona T. Lydon-Rochelle
Saturday - Barbara Hamby
Sunday - Ed Skoog

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

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

Wayne Miller, "The First Year"
Sean Ashton, "Hello-Goodbye in Gethsemane"
Neil Curry, "Kingfisher"
Sinéad Morrissey, "A Matter of Life and Death"
John Foy, "The White-Breasted Nuthatch"
Kathleen Graber, "New Year"
Chris Wallace-Crabbe, "Afternoon in the Central Nervous System"

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8. Poem From Last Year

The White-Breasted Nuthatch

Like a clerk in a local discount store
diligently counting every cent,
the bird asks for nothing more
than its small due, picking what scant
food it can from between the strips
of hardened bark it clings upside-
down to. Pine weevils and ants
make up the meal, and just outside
its hole it smears blister beetles
to irk the squirrel that likes to come
and try to kill it. On principle
it flicks feces from the nest at dawn.
In the bankrupting cold of wintertime
it tells me what, in fact, is mine.

John Foy
The Yale Review
October 2015

Copyright © 2015 by John Foy
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission