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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 ]

Joy Jacobson, Smartish Pace Reading

Joy Jacobson reading for Smartish Pace Issue 18 party on 12-17-11 at KGB Bar in New York City. Intro by Smartish Pace Editor Stephen Reichert. 

Interview with Christopher Buckley

In his new book, Star Apocrypha, the poet Christopher Buckley reaches for a higher lyric pitch and succeeds exponentially. Buckley's poetry addresses matters of this world and of the soul, daily life and the lifeof the imagination with brilliant language and finesse. His poems perform aneloquent dance between memory and the here and now, turning time into the verysame stuff as the clouds and stars.In the following interview, the poet discusses contemporary poetry and his latest book, Star Apocrypha.Maggie Paul: Can you recall some of your earliest experiences with poetry and how they influenced your decision to become a poet?Christopher Buckley: My earliest memory of poetry is from Mt. Carmel School in Montecito fourth grade, fifth? I wrote a poem for Mother’s Day in class, the nun passing out white paper and blue construction paper to paste it on. I remember this because I found it years later in a trunk, my mother had saved it. It was in fact in quatrains rhyming abab, three or four of them with sunlight and bluebirds flying about the edges of the stanzas. I think I came across it while I was in college ... [ read more ]

The Fields of Praise

The poetry in Marilyn Nelson's 1997 National Book Award Finalist collection of new and selected poems, The Fields of Praise, varies richly in both subject matter and technique. In section I, "Mama and Daddy," Nelson recounts, in conversational poems, poignant, engaging stories of her parents and what they gave her. Her father "was a navigator on B-52s. His crew was a lot like the crew of the bomber in Dr. Strangelove (1964) in which James ... [ read more ]