Canada's most generous poetry award, founded by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin.
Reed College of Portland, Oregon presents writer and poet Tongo Eisen-Martin delivering a special keynote address virtually for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
In the face of a system that will not likely survive too many more generations; through poetry and exposition we will investigate the trajectories of liberation for Black people in the United States and what it will require of our imagination and commitment.
The 17th Palm Beach Poetry Festival is scheduled for January 18-23, 2021 and will be held virtually. Workshop faculty poets include David Baker, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Traci Brimhall, Eduardo C. Corral, Vievee Francis, Kevin Prufer, Martha Rhodes and Tim Seibles; our Special Guest Poet, Gregory Orr, will perform with The Parkington Sisters; and Poet At Large is Brian Turner.
Help Alaska Quarterly Review (AQR) reach new literary milestones. Please mark your calendars for Pièces de Résistance, an extraordinary benefit series celebrating AQR’s 40th anniversary. Join the publication for 21 free, live online readings and conversations, featuring 58 exceptional new, emerging, and established poets and writers who have appeared in AQR. Pièces de Résistance runs from October 4, 2020 to May 2, 2021 hosted by the Anchorage Museum and moderated by author Heather Lende and AQR Co-Founder and Editor Ronald Spatz.
While all of the Pièces de Résistance events are free, consider making a tax-exempt donation to support AQR through our 501c3 affiliate, the Center for the Narrative & Lyric Arts.
This event features readings by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Marilyn Manolakas and Robin Black.
copyright ©2017 by Tongo Eisen-Martin
My dear, if it is not a city, it is a prison.
If it has a prison, it is a prison. Not a city.
When a courtyard talks on behalf of military issue,
all walks take place outside of the body.
Dear life to your left
A medieval painting to your right
None of this makes an impression
Crop people living in thin air
You got five minutes
to learn how to see
through this breeze
When a mask goes sideways,
Barbed wire becomes the floor
Barbed wire becomes the roof
Forty feet into the sky
becomes out of bounds
When a mask breaks in half,
mind which way the eyes go.
Notes on the Poem
Not only are the poems of Tongo Eisen-Martin's 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize shortlisted collection Heaven Is All Goodbyes gripping on the page, but they are astounding and compelling to hear presented by the poet. We were so fortunate to do just that during the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize readings ... Once you have heard him speak, we contend that it's impossible to go back to the words on the page and not hear his voice. His demeanour has an offhand ease that makes the words seem extemporaneous, but they are faithful to the words written. The almost unearthly calm of his delivery actually demands your full attention - you are leaning forward to catch every phrase and line and absorb their intensity. Added to the marvel of Eisen-Martin's readings is that the lecterns before him are bare of pages or notes. So go ahead: read this excerpt from the poem "Faceless" and register what is revealed through imagining his voice bringing it to life. On Monday, January 18th, 2021, Tongo Eisen-Martin's indelible voice will be applied to a special keynote address he will present online for Martin Luther King Jr. Day in conjunction with Reed College of Portland, Oregon. The address is described as endeavouring "through poetry and exposition [to] investigate the trajectories of liberation for Black people in the United States and what it will require of our imagination and commitment." Even if he doesn't have notes before him for that address, we hope the blazing words will be available after - like the poems we've experienced here - for all of us to learn from and revere.
The challenge: create a collaborative piece with at least one other person. You must write some new poetry, but you can add any other creative media you like – visual art, film, music, zines etc.
South Bank Poetry Editor Katherine Lockton runs regular Saturday poetry writing classes online. Join South Bank Poetry for their online programme of poetry writing classes, which provide a fun, personal and accessible approach to learning how to write poetry, in a friendly environment that puts the student’s learning experience first.
This class looks at how we write about trauma, and if we can if it isn’t ours. Poetry techniques taught focus on poetry and writing about difficult issues.
The Estuary Collective presents LIPSERVICE: an evening of poetry and prowess. Eleven contemporary poets – including Joy Priest, Brittany Rogers, Jason Crawford and more – explore the transformative power of lipstick.
Aftermath is an artist collective composed of writers, visual artists, musicians and arts educators. Before the pandemic they mainly focused on producing one-off art and music events. This year they are hosting quarterly virtual readings and workshops.
This first event features readings by poets Nabila Lovelace, Nathan Osorio and Natalie Shapero.
The 2021 Guernsey International Poetry Competition (Poems on the Move), organised by the Guernsey Literary Festival, seeks poems of a maximum length of 14 lines for individual poems.
The competition, which is sponsored by Guernsey Post, has three categories:
This year’s judge is poet, writer and teacher Kate Clanchy.
filling Station is calling for submissions from Black, Indigenous, and POC writers and artists from Turtle Island and beyond for Issue 76 which will be guest edited by Canisia Lubrin (author of Voodoo Hypothesis and The Dyzgraphxst). The publication invites stories, poems, and art on all themes, but would particularly like to see experimental submissions of celebration in all its forms, stories about the future, innovative creative non-fiction, and experimental and speculative poetry, and artwork.