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Poet(s) currently taking questions: None.

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Adrienne Rich Dies

 
Baltimore native Adrienne Rich, an award-winning poet whose socially conscious work influenced a generation of feminist, gay rights and anti-war activists, has died at 82. She died Tuesday at her ... [ read more ]

Herrera Appointed California Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera was appointed California Poet Laureate by Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday. Herrera, 63 and son of Mexican migrant workers, will be the first Hispanic writer to serve in the post. ... [ read more ]

Smartish Pace Cover Art Party

On March 26, 2011 artist friends of Smartish Pace gathered in Baltimore and made one-of-a-kind covers for Smartish Pace Issues 17 and 18. In addition to the regular versions of these issues, the individual art cover editions can be purchased at www.smartishpace.com. Artists: Claudia, Clare Banks, Susan Campbell, Joel Feinberg, Jared Fischer, Natalie Kahla, Jeff Lewandowski, Maeve Reichert, Stephen Reichert, Terence Winch & Baynard Woods.

Interview with Jeffrey Harrison

Jeffrey Harrison's Feeding the Fire is available from Sarabande Books (www.sarabandebooks.org). Harrison is the author of two previous collections, The Singing Underneath, selected by James Merrill for the National Poetry Series, and Signs of Arrival. Jacqueline McLean: Titling a book of poems seems like a difficult enterprise. I want to ask you to talk about the significance of your title, Feeding the Fire. In presenting this question, I have a few thoughts in mind. First, there is your marvelous line from Kafka which prefaces the collection: "What one writes is merely the ashes of one's experience." This is a particularly apt line for poetry, in which we relive or try to recover something of the essence of what once was. Yet I see a contradiction here or at least an intriguing complication. In a poem like "White Spaces," you recover (without bringing him back) a college professor who continues to compel you. The closing lines of the poem read: Gone now, known too briefly and too long ago for me to bring him back in a poem, though I'd like to think that what he was and what he gave me hover at the edges of ... [ read more ]

One with Others by C.D. Wright

February was Black History Month, a fact that seemed to go largely unnoticed by folks in the news media who I thought might care a little more. A little later, I picked up C.D. Wright’s One with Others, an obvious National Book Award Finalist if nothing else for the promise of greatness based on its author’s resume, a promise solidified by the book itself. I experienced One with Others in the context of two other ... [ read more ]