Poetry in the News

Gregory Cowles blogs in the NY Times on Poetry

 Does Poetry Matter?

Sometimes the planets align and you start seeing the same idea discussed by different people everywhere you look, as if your brain had stumbled late at night across a niche cable station broadcast by the universe itself. For me lately the show has been all about the relevance of poetry, as in: Is poetry relevant? Even among poets there seems to be a nervous consensus that it’s not.

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I'm glad the poetry sidewalk public works venture is still thriving in St. Paul, Minnesota 
 
St. Paul Public Works officials Wednesday announced the winners of the 2010 Sidewalk Poetry Contest. The city annually replaces approximately 10 miles of sidewalk as part of its regular maintenance program. To date, 26 different poems have been stamped into 260 locations around the city


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Ask the Experts: Carmen Gillespie on poetry

This week, we asked Professor of English Carmen Gillespie to talk about the importance of poetry in our daily lives. Essence recently named Gillespie one of its "Forty Favorite Poets" in honor of the magazine's 40th anniversary. Gillespie was recognized for her poem, "Lining the Rails," about her maternal family.


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Just the Fact, Ma'am: The Statistics of a Manuscript shared by the poet author

The first poem mentions crumb cake and the penultimate poem mentions crumb cake. I cannot tell you the last lines in the collection as that will hopefully be a gift to you when/if you read it, but I can tell you the first and last poems mention "passion" (not the Mel Gibson movie) and have references to Alice in Wonderland in a couple ways along with Emily Dickinson if you're paying attention. ;-)