poetry

Your Connected Notebook: The Instagram of Eileen Myles
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Your Connected Notebook: The Instagram of Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles is a poet, novelist, performer and art journalist who ran a write-in candidacy for president twenty-five years ago when the bulk of our presidential candidates were straight, white, male, and wealthy. But you wouldn’t know any of this from their Instagram page, where their bio reads, simply, “poet.”

Art Is Resistance: Editor Peter Kahn Talks The Golden Shovel Anthology and the Power of Poetry

Art Is Resistance: Editor Peter Kahn Talks The Golden Shovel Anthology and the Power of Poetry

As a commemoration and celebration of Gwendolyn Brooks’s work, the University of Arkansas Press released The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks. Editor and Chicago high school educator Peter Kahn explains the importance of the anthology and the transformative nature of poetry.

“Hyperconsciousness of the Historical Instability of Words”: An Interview with Monica Youn
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“Hyperconsciousness of the Historical Instability of Words”: An Interview with Monica Youn

Monica Youn’s poems are precise, sharp-edged and fleet-footed; they always seem to be moving in three different directions at once. She is the author of three books of poems: Blackacre, Barter, and Ignatz, and her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. A former attorney, she now teaches at Princeton and in the MFA program at Warren Wilson. We caught up via email at the start of the new year to talk about the similarities between poets and lawyers, her latest book, and what might be her next one.

selective focus photography of books on bookcases near people sits in chairs

The Learning Curve: Fact, Fiction, and What I’ve Learned

This ability to slip in and out and between voices has been crucial for my style of work. I’ve always been involved in multiple projects at a time, and while I typically finish translating one book before moving on to the next, there are always edits coming back from authors, or small rush jobs to fit in, and as in life, nothing is neat and clean and separate.

“I was a house / I was a witch” : Muriel Leung’s “A House Fell Down on All of Us.”
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“I was a house / I was a witch” : Muriel Leung’s “A House Fell Down on All of Us.”

“I was a house. / I was a witch” declares the middle stanza of Muriel Leung’s “A House Fell Down on All of Us” from the newest issue of DRUNKEN BOAT. This poem, in my reading, functions to present intermingling transformations that perform whatever an opposite of distillation forecloses.

“Always on the Lookout”: An Interview with Allison Joseph

“Always on the Lookout”: An Interview with Allison Joseph

The poems in Allison Joseph’s recent chapbook Mercurial are wise and clear-eyed, charting moments of tenderness and emotion in everyday life. Her work encompass a number of different themes—from personal and family history, to self-image and style—and embody formal approaches as well as conversational yet musical free verse.