Sylvia Legris
Damp-squib grammar of pretty things and wild mignonette.
Quercitron bark. Old fustic’s persistently pissy stamen,
the peony-stained wallpaper. Despite the conspicuous hot spots,
sun, chrysanthemum, coreopsis, yellow’s a letdown nevertheless.

The repeating motifs? Killers. Jasmine twill, jasmine trellis ...
Trifoliate moth-traps these wool and cotton undersellers.
Envisage Little Chintz or Corncockle (where the flower plays
but a minor part), or an indigo-discharged rose. And the bugs!

Kermes, cochineal. A scuffle of ripe and ruin among rosebud
and campion, columbine and vine. So heartsunk am I of tusser silk
and cotton velveteen. Fuffling if nothing this art of color or perish.
Lacking compassion for lac-dye and up to the elbows in vermillion

melodrama ... I’m dyeing, I’m dyeing ...
from the book GARDEN PHYSIC / New Directions
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Sonia Sanchez: There's More Work to be Done

"Sanchez draws deeply on Black oral traditions, skilfully mixing blues bars with traditional Japanese forms like haiku and tanka. She's known to bring jazz musicians, drummers, and other musical guests on stage to aid and elevate her performances."

via NPR
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What Sparks Poetry:
Alyse Knorr On John Keats' "Bright Star"

"I loved picturing the star in the poem watching the waves clean the shores and the snow graze the mountaintops. I loved how the first half of the poem painted a picture by negation, like a puzzle, and how it wrenched me from the cold, lonely reaches of outer space down to the grounded, intimate moment of laying one's head on a lover's breast and hearing the quiet of her breathing: all made equally sacred in the poem's grand equation."
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18th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival
January 10-15, 2022

We are pledged to create an extraordinary week of virtual poetry workshops and events for you in the safety of your home.
 
Workshop Faculty: Kim Addonizio, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Chard deNiord, Mark Doty, Yona Harvey, John Murillo, Matthew Olzmann and Diane Seuss. One-On-One Conferences with Lorna Blake, Sally Bliumis Dunn, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, and Angela Narciso Torres. A special Craft Talk by Kwame Dawes. Special Guest Poet: Yusef Komunyakaa. Poet-at-Large: Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
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