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Shara McCallum's book, Madwoman, Longlisted for 2018 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature

Six books by writers from five Caribbean countries have been announced on the longlist for the 2018 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, sponsored by One Caribbean Media. The group ... [ read more ]

Smartish Pace 2017 Pushcart Prize Nominations

Editor Stephen Reichert selected the following poems from Issue 24 (April, 2017):

Safia Elhillo: “Self-Portrait With No Flag”
Nausheen Eusuf: “Allegiance”
Jennifer Koiter: “The Messy Girl Feels at Home ... [ read more ]

Christine Stewart, Smartish Pace Reading

Christine Stewart, Smartish Pace Poetry Reading, May 8, 2010 from Smartish Pace on Vimeo.

Christine Stewart reading for Smartish Pace at G-Spot, Baltimore, on May 8, 2010.

Interview with Greg Williamson

Jessica Yoo: How did you come up with form of Double Exposures?Greg Williamson:  When I’d first written a few Double Exposures, I was reminded by a friend that I’d floated an idea like it back in school. I liked the notion of having this text on the page that interleaves and changes depending on how you look at it. But I never thought of an unhokey way of doing it. One day, years later, I was thinking about the effects of this photographic double exposure, and I thought I’d give it a shot. I figured it ought to be about 3x5, and I wanted the third, combined reading to bring the other two together into a complexified, and generally darker, coexistence.JY: What should poets keep in mind when attempting this form?GW: Quite a few people have written enviably good ones. The hardest part is maintaining the accuracy of the grammar, syntax, punctuation, and so forth when the two parts join in the middle, what I thought of as the estuary, what someone else called the zipper.JY: The subject matter of some of your poems seems to be inspired by everyday observations or ... [ read more ]

Life in the Ordovician

In this excellent collection of poems, Robert Murphy’s language is elemental. The earth and his sense of the musicality of language are unparalleled: Murphy revels in language, and his reveling is a desire for revelation. Murphy handles our lexicon as a gardener handles seeds and plantings in a garden: placing words in perfect arrangement; and just as the gardener places certain plants in light or in shade, the poet places his words in arrangement of ... [ read more ]