“By making a poem, which will hopefully wind up in print somewhere, you’re entering the turbulence and changes into the historical record in a subjective way.”
Continue reading“At one time I would have said my poetic speakers were personae and disguises, not me. One advantage of age, if you work at it of course, is knowing who you are. I’m too tired for disguises now.”
Continue readingThe National Poetry Series congratulates the five winners of the 2025 National Poetry Series Open Competition: Hajjar Baban, Stephanie Horvath, Weston Morrow, Kira Alexis Tucker, and Yi Wei.
Continue readingThe National Poetry Series, in collaboration with Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Book Fair, is pleased to announce the 2026 Paz Prize for Poetry winner: Karen Elizabeth Bishop, a poet, translator, essayist, and scholar, for her manuscript Si|If, written in Spanish and offered in self-translation into English. Her book was chosen by the poet and scholar Miguel Ángel Zapata and will be published by Alliteration Publishing House in 2027. The poems in Si/If recapture the
Continue reading“Sometimes you want to soothe with the music; sometimes you want to disturb with the music. All I can say is I am a Motown baby.” – Patricia Smith
Continue reading“In a poem, if you can flex the music, line, and form enough, no matter what has happened, or what continues to happen even in a pained world, anything might still be possible, accompanied by the right song. That’s freedom.”
Continue reading“Even if you are a writer who simply thinks of literature as an escape, you cannot control how your reader approaches it, and the interaction between writer and reader is a core part of the process. Otherwise you are just writing a journal for yourself. Whatever is happening in the world is always going to influence how people to respond to art.”
Continue reading“I was drawn to poetry as soon as I learned to read. I’d describe it as simply an attraction, though that in itself could also be said to be inexplicable, metaphysical, ontological, fated, fatal (not to be dramatic or anything—good movie though).”
Continue reading“Suddenly, it seemed possible to become a composer myself, creating in a medium I’d always loved: language.”
Continue reading“I have also become habituated, daily, to writing newer, stranger, and hopefully more truthful and revelatory things, which has its own, gentler, less urgent but nonetheless compelling edge.”
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