Peter Campion Wins Levis Reading Prize
July 26th, 2010
Peter Campion’s The Lions (Chicago) won the 13th annual Levis Reading Prize from Virginia Commonwealth University for the best first or second book of poetry published in 2009. Campion will receive the award at a literary conference honoring the late poet Larry Levis – the namesake of the Levis Prize – on Sept. 22-24 at VCU. Campion, an assistant professor at Auburn University, is also the author of Other People (Chicago, 2005).
W.S. Merwin Name U.S. Poet Laureate
July 2nd, 2010
The Library of Congress announced that W.S. Merwin will follow Kay Ryan as the 17th Poet Laureate of the United States. The post comes with an annual salary of $35,000. Merwin is the author of seventeen books, and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award.
Dick Allen Named CT Poet Laureate
June 18th, 2010
The Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism has announced that Dick Allen of Trumbull, CT, is Connecticut's new Poet Laureate. Allen will serve a five year term from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2015. He succeeds Poet Laureate John Hollander. Previous CT Poet Laureates include Marilyn Nelson, Leo Connellan and James Merrill. Allen has appeared in several issues of Smartish Pace and you can hear him read all of his SP poems, along with photographs of him and his home, in the media section of this website.
Smartish Pace on Poetry Daily
June 14th, 2010
"Twin Tree" by Carol Muske-Dukes, a poem that appears in Smartish Pace Issue 17, is featured today at Poetry Daily. Thank you to the good folks at Poetry Daily!
Wimbledon Appoints Championships Poet
May 19th, 2010
The Wimbledon tennis championship has appointed Matt Harvey as Championships Poet 2010. Harvey is the first such poet and will post new poems each day about the tennis action throughout the tennis tournament. The position was created as a result of Wimbleton teaming up with The Poetry Trust. Harvey's poems can be found here and here.
Nikki Giovanni Bequeaths Copyrights to VA Tech
May 17th, 2010
Virginia Tech professor and poet Nikki Giovanni announced that she will confer copyright to all her works to Virginia Tech upon her death, making the university the trustee of her estate. Giovanni has written 30 books already. The copyrights will be managed by the English Department. Money from the bequest will be earmarked for a special fund called "The Answer is Yes," which will be used to fund programs for English students.
Pinsky & Springsteen Perform Together
May 6th, 2010
Robert Pinsky and Bruce Springsteen performed together at Fairleigh Dickinson University to a crowd of 400 students, where they also discussed their work, influences and careers and joked about the fact both were born at Monmouth Memorial Hospital, albeit nine years apart (Pinsky is older). The occasion was the university's WAMFEST Words and Music Festival. "What I've been trying to write about for 40 years, Robert gets into a single poem," Springsteen said.
A 400 person venue for this event? Nice planning FDU.
Dead Poets Remembrance Day
April 24th, 2010
A former teacher who founded the Dead Poets Society of America and traveled 15,000 miles to document the graves of poets has a new mission: to create a Dead Poets Remembrance Day on Oct. 7, the date that Edgar Allan Poe died. Walter Skold of Freeport, Maine, launched his new endeavor beginning a 22-state tour of the graves of fallen bards. He's enlisted 13 current and former state poets laureate to help drum up support.
Peter Porter Dies
April 23rd, 2010
One of Britain's most distinguished poets, Peter Porter, died on April 23, 2010 at the age of 81. From when he started publishing in the 1960s, he produced 17 collections of poetry, four collaborations with the Australian painter Arthur Boyd and a number of lyrics for contemporary composers. He won the Whitbread prize for poetry in 1988, and in 2002 the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry and the Forward Poetry Prize.
Dodge Poetry Festival Finds New Home
April 20th, 2010
Four U.S. Poet Laureates will join 40+ acclaimed poets in Newmark, NJ, Oct. 7-10, 2010 for the 13th Dodge Poetry Festival. In 2009 Dodge Foundation president and CEO David Grant cancelled the festival based on rising costs and the economic downturn, but several towns offered to partner with the foundation to keep the fest alive. Dodge sought formal proposals and Newark won, beating out eight other New Jersey locations. Grant said the foundation expects to spend $600,000 on the event in 2010, less than the $1.3 million it spent in 2008. All but one of the 12 previous festivals were held at Waterloo Village in Byram Township (2004 was at Duke Farms in Hillsborough) and together they attracted more than 140,000 patrons.
