Louise Glück
I am against
symmetry, he said. He was holding in both hands
an unbalanced piece of wood that had been
very large once, like the limb of a tree:
this was before its second life in the water,
after which, though there was less of it
in terms of mass, there was greater
spiritual density. Driftwood,
he said, confirms my view—this is why it seems
inherently dramatic. To make this point,
he tapped the wood. Rather violently, it seemed,
because a piece broke off.
Movement! he cried. That is the lesson! Look at these paintings,
he said, meaning ours. I have been making art
longer than you have been breathing
and yet my canvases have life, they are drowning
in life—Here he grew silent.
I stood beside my work, which now seemed rigid and lifeless.
We will take our break now, he said.

I stepped outside, for a moment, into the night air.
It was a cold night. The town was on a beach,
near where the wood had been.
I felt I had no future at all.
I had tried and I had failed.
I had mistaken my failures for triumphs.
The phrase smoke and mirrors entered my head.
And suddenly my teacher was standing beside me,
smoking a cigarette. He had been smoking for many years,
his skin was full of wrinkles.
You were right, he said, the way
instinctively you stepped aside.
Not many do that, you'll notice.
The work will come, he said. The lines
will emerge from the brush. He paused here
to gaze calmly at the sea in which, now,
all the planets were reflected. The driftwood
is just a show, he said; it entertains the children.
Still, he said, it is rather beautiful, I think,
like those misshapen trees the Chinese grow.
Pun-sai, they're called. And he handed me
the piece of driftwood that had broken off.
Start small, he said. And patted my shoulder.
from the journal THE THREEPENNY REVIEW
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Jericho Brown's The Tradition Wins Pulitzer Prize

"The Tradition questions why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror: in the bedroom, the classroom, the workplace, and the movie theater. From mass shootings to rape to the murder of unarmed people by police, Jericho Brown interrupts complacency by locating each emergency in the garden of the body, where living things grow and wither—or survive."
 
viaCOPPER CANYON PRESS
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Cover of the book, The Poems of Paul Celan, translated by Michael Hamburger
What Sparks Poetry:
Gillian Parrish on Paul Celan's "In the Daytime"

"This poem also expands my view of poem-making as a practice of attention to include poem as communion, as something more like prayer. Clearly, Celan’s poem is a poem of attention. Better yet, it is a poem that attends without wanting, that rests in a ready waiting-that-is-not-waiting. For only in such an open space can wildness arrive and minds meet."
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North Street Book Prize for Self-Published Books 
$12,500 in cash prizes. Deadline: June 30

Sponsored by Winning Writers and co-sponsored by BookBaby and Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Categories include Poetry, Mainstream/Literary Fiction, Genre Fiction, Creative Nonfiction & Memoir, Children's Picture Book, and Graphic Novel & Memoir. One grand prize of $5,000 and the winner in each category will receive $1,000, plus additional benefits. Gift for everyone who enters.  Final judges: Jendi Reiter and Ellen LaFleche. Entry fee: $65. Winning Writers is one of "101 Best Websites for Writers" (Writer's Digest). Entries accepted by mail and via Submittable. See guidelines and past winners.
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