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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

Our prose series continues this week with "Poetry, Place, and Prophecy: An Interview with John F. Deane," by Michael P. Murphy, from Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry:

"By poems being 'given,' I mean poems—indeed phrases and images and the music of poems—that appear to arrive unexpectedly to the poet from outside the self, poems that appear to write themselves. In former times we would have spoken about the Holy Spirit taking one over and almost dictating the work, inspired Scripture; it was total 'inspiration,' it was an 'inbreathing'. I believe, with T.S. Eliot, that such incoming arrives after much work, much thought, reading, experience, even preliminary notes and drafts. But that the final, achieved work emerges quickly as a rose blossoming suddenly on the end of a thorny stem."

Look for it here.

Enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller

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2. Sponsor Messages

 15th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival
15th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival - Delray Beach, Florida, January 21-26, 2019. Focus on your work with 8 of America’s most celebrated poets: Ellen Bass, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Stuart Dischell, Aracelis Girmay, Campbell McGrath, Matthew Olzmann, Gregory Pardlo, Eleanor Wilner. Six days of workshops, readings, craft talks, manuscript conferences, panel discussion, social events and so much more. Special Guest, Sharon Olds, Poet At Large, Tyehimba Jess. Visit palmbeachpoetryfestival.org to apply online. Deadline: November 12, 2018.

 John Yau Wins Jackson Poetry Prize
Poets & Writers congratulates John Yau, recipient of the 2018 Jackson Poetry Prize. In their citation, judges Laura Kasischke, Robin Coste Lewis, and Arthur Sze commend Yau’s ability to create unforgettable poems through his “dazzling imagination and singular command of language” and by “employing voices that reveal the multiple and shadowy selves inside the self.” The Jackson Prize, which carries a $60,000 award, was established in 2006 with a gift from the Liana Foundation to honor an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition. Learn more at pw.org

 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. Follow on Instagram!

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

“Wonderful, surprising, often profound — made me daydream.” —XJ Kennedy

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Rebecca Foust presents "Say Grace" by Emily Jungmin Yoon. (Women's Voices for Change)
• Holly Parsons talks with Terrance Hayes about American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin and more. (Idyllwild Town Crier)
• Rita Dove introduces "Ongoing,"by Jenny Xie. (The New York Times Magazine)
• The Sparrow: Selected Poems, by A.F. Moritz, reviewed by George Fetherling. (The Globe and Mail)
• Rita Dove introduces a poem by Nathan McClain. (The New York Times Magazine)
• Geoffrey Hilsabeck on Stanley Kunitz and the Fine Arts Work Center. (Paris Review Daily)
• Heather June Gibbons's Her Mouth as Souvenir reviewed by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. (KQED)
• And more...

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4. New Arrivals

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

• Ghost Of, Diana Khoi Nguyen (Omnidawn)
• In the House of My Father, Hiwot Adilow (Two Sylvias Press)
• feeld, Jos Charles (Milkweed Editions)
• Long Love: New & Selected Poems 1985-2017, Judith Barrington (Salmon Poetry)
• Stopgap Grace, Neil McCarthy (Salmon Poetry)
• A Quarter of an Hour, Leanne O'Sullivan (Bloodaxe Books)
• The Wound Register, Esther Morgan (Bloodaxe Books)
• In Country, Hugh Martin (BOA Editions)
• Clues from the Animal Kingdom, Christopher Kennedy (BOA Editions)
• Dresses from the Old Country, Laura Read (BOA Editions)
• Holy Moly Carry Me, Erika Meitner (BOA Editions)

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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 - Linda Bierds
Tuesday - Amy Meng
Wednesday - Elizabeth Spires
Thursday - Ange Mlinko
Friday - David Keplinger
Saturday - Ewa Chrusciel
Sunday - Andrew Soye

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6. Featured Poets July 16 - July 22, 2018

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

Monday - John Poch
Tuesday - Vievee Francis
Wednesday - Vincent Zompa
Thursday - Cara Dees
Friday - Dong Li
Saturday - Hoshang Merchant
Sunday -Kate Greenstreet

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

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

Sidney Wade, "Witness Tree Junction, Rochelle, FL"
Dean Rader, "American Self-Portrait IV"
Ange Mlinko, Two Poems
Grace Schulman, "The Rooted Bed"
Alessandra Lynch, "no pronouncements"
Philip Fried, "The Full Treatment"
Grace Bauer, "Still Life as Oxymoron"

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8. Poem From Last Year

The Rooted Bed

When the medics lifted your lean body
that once loped over hot sand to the sea,
I wanted them to keep you on our bed

like the one that waited for Odysseus.
He'd carved the bedpost from an olive tree,
alive, still rooted to the earth. For ours,

you'd found a board cut from an oak
and sanded it until it shone like wheat,
a platform for the mattress, unobtrusive

under a quilt, yet there, your handiwork.
In sickness you lay on the rooted bed.
It never moved, just as we stayed put

in one apartment, and heard things rise:
Schubert's Impromptus on a stereo
you'd built, rooted with electric wires

and plugs to be immovable as well,
a pigeon that chirred on the high sill
(you called it a rock dove), until it flew,

Grand lllusion on a video played
over until we memorized the lines.
The bed is still in place. At night without you

I feel it quiver to put down new roots.

 

Grace Schulman
The Kenyon Review
July / August 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Grace Schulman
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission