David Orr, poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review, wrote Beautiful & pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry for me, or for readers very nearly like me: familiar with poetry but not wildly knowledgeable, who write poetry on occasion but are not particularly enthused about publishing it; and who are both aware of […]
National Poetry Month: Steven Marty Grant
Steven Marty Grant describes himself as a Southern California boy transplanted to New York City. To read his poems, you’d think he was a New York native. His poems have appeared in a number of literary magazines and journals, and he graduated from “a school you never heard of and had so many majors that […]
National Poetry Month: Anya Krugovoy Silver
Anya Krugovoy Silver is professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She has published poetry in numerous journals, including Image, New Ohio Review, Witness, Prairie Schooner, Christian Century, Christianity and Literature, Anglican Theological Review, Laurel Review, Iowa Review, North American Review and others. Her first collection, The Ninety-Third Name of […]
National Poetry Month: Ilya Kaminsky
Ilya Kaminsky was born in 1977 in Odessa in The Ukraine (then the Soviet Union), and came to the United States in 1993 when his family was granted political asylum. He is the author of the chapbook Musica Humana and Dancing in Odessa, which won several awards. He’s also received a Whiting Writers’ Award, the […]
National Poetry Month: J. Michael Martinez
J. Michael Martinez is a young poet but already one with impressive credentials. A graduate of Northern Colorado University (B.A.) and George Mason University (M.F.A.), his poems have appeared in New American Writing, Five Fingers Review, The Colorado Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. He received the 2006 Five Fingers Review Poetry Prize and […]
National Poetry Month: Ava Leavell Haymon
Ava Leavell Haymon has written three poetry collections — Why the House Is Made of Gingerbread, Kitchen Heat and The Strict Economy of Fire, and published five chapbooks from small presses. She’s also written seven plays for children. She teaches poetry writing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and directs a writers’ retreat center in the mountains […]
National Poetry Month: Andrei Codrescu
The first time I heard of Andrei Codrescu, he was speaking on National Public Radio. And he was speaking about my hometown, New Orleans. And he was speaking like he knew what he was talking about, which he did, and with an Eastern European accent. Who was this guy? Codrescu was born in Romania. He […]
National Poetry Month: Nikki Giovanni
Nikki Giovanni is a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech University, where she teaches writing and literature. A poet, activist and educator, Giovanni is the author of more than 30 books, has received 19 honorary doctorates and numerous awards, and has even been nominated for a Grammy Award. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1943, she […]
National Poetry Month: Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns, professor of English and Director of Creativity Writing at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is the author of six collections of poetry, the memoir Short Trip to the Edge, the non-fiction work The End of Suffering, and numerous articles, essays and even a libretto for an oratorio. I had the distinct pleasure of taking […]
National Poetry Month: Luci Shaw
Luci Shaw is a poet, essayist, retreat leader and teacher. She’s published eight books of poetry, and her poems have appeared in publications ranging from Books & Culture and The Christian Century to The Southern Review. She is currently Writer in Residence for Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. Shaw was born in England in […]
It’s National Poetry Month
There must be something one can say about National Poetry Month starting on April Fool’s Day. But I can’t, or won’t. For National Poetry Month 2011, TweetSpeak Poetry will be featuring a series of posts on poets living and dead, published and unpublished, and including links to sites that we’ve found on the internet that […]
A Second Edition for “Barbies”
Barbies at Communion: and other poems by Marcus Goodyear has just gone into its second edition – and it has a new cover. Published last year by T. S. Poetry Press, Barbies has received a number of great reviews and was selected as a runner-up for best poetry book of the year by the Englewood […]
Talking with Maureen Doallas about “Neruda’s Memoirs”
An interview with poet Maureen Doallas, about her background and poetic history, going into the publishing of her first book ‘Neruda’s Memoirs.’
“Neruda’s Memoirs” by Maureen Doallas
Maureen Doallas is a regular participant in our poetry jams on Twitter, and the author of blog Writing Without Paper. Her online eye ranges over a vast array of art, poetry and culture, and she freely shares what she she finds with the rest of us. T.S. Poetry Press has just published (“just” as in […]
Homage to Robert Frost
Poet Robert Frost (1874 – 1963), known for his use of colloquial American speech and rural settings, won four Pulitzer Prizes, among many other honors and recognitions. By the time I was in junior high and high school, his poetry was in all the American literature textbooks; he’d been published since 1914 and I assumed […]
The Poetry of Monopoly
What happens when you mix Monopoly and poetry mashups?
An Interview with David Wheeler
Last week, I posted an article here about reading poetry while waiting in line to vote. The poetry in question was Contingency Plans: Poems by David Wheeler. Today over at The High Calling is an interview with David about his poetry and writing. Below is some information from the interview about his background and upbringing. […]
The Poetry of Voting
The mid-term election was last week, and I prepared myself for the process with – a book of poems. While the lines weren’t expected to be long, unlike 2008, I still wanted to be prepared to wait. Voting lines aren’t the best places to make conversation – people are very circumspect; no one wants to […]