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.
Ai Dies
March 24th, 2010
Poet Ai, who was born Florence Anthony, died on Saturday in Oklahoma at the age 62. The author of seven collections including Cruelty (1973), Sin (1986), Fate (1991) and Greed (1993), Ai won the National Book Award in 1999 for Vice. Ai taught at Oklahoma State University, which said it planned to establish a creative writing scholarship in her memory. A new volume of her poetry, No Surrender, is scheduled to be published this September.
Clewell Named Missouri Poet Laureate
March 4th, 2010
David Clewell, a professor of English at Webster University, has been named Missouri's second poet laureate. A native of New Jersey, Clewell received his MFA at Washington University in St. Louis. He's published seven collections of poetry, most recently The Low End of Higher Things.
Tribute Planned for Lucille Clifton
February 13th, 2010
Former Maryland Poet Laureate Lucille Clifton died at age 73. She was hospitalized last week in Columbia, MD, and passed away Saturday morning at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.
Clifton published 11 books of poetry and 20 children's books. She won the National Book Award in 2000 for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1988.
A public memorial is scheduled for April 10 (7:30 pm) at St. Mary's College of Maryland where Clifton had been a member of the faculty from 1989 until her retirement in 2007.
Powell & Bachmann Win Tufts Awards
February 3rd, 2010
Claremont Graduate University has announced the winners of its Kingsley and Kate Tufts poetry awards. The Kingsley Tufts Award, and $100,000 prize money, will go to D. A. Powell for his collection Chronic (Graywolf). Mr. Powell's work appears in Smartish Pace, Issue 14. The Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and $10,000, that is given to a first book by a poet, was won by Beth Bachmann for her collection Temper (Pittsburgh). The awards will be handed out at a ceremony on April 22 at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.
David Franks Dies
January 14th, 2010
David Franks, poet, artist, songwriter and prankster, died on Jan. 14 in his Baltimore apartment at the age of 61. The list of David Franks stories is long: he wrote Congressional speeches in the mid-1970s, conducted a musical composition played by tugboat whistles, commandeered a Xerox machine at Social Security headquarters, undressed, mounted the machine and photocopied his body for an art project.... He earned an MA from Johns Hopkins and spent most of his working life teaching writing.
A memorial will take place at 3 pm on Sunday, Jan. 31, at The Creative Alliance at The Patterson (3134 Eastern Ave.). The afternoon will also include a potluck reception at 4 pm and "Footlong's Friends Read" at 5 pm.
2009 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize Results
January 8th, 2010
6th Annual Beullah Rose Poetry Prize from Smartish Pace; Clare Banks & Traci O’Dea, Judges
1st Prize: “Remember” by Miriam Bird Greenberg
2nd Prize: “When My Back Gave Out” by Lisa Norris
3rd Prize: “Jung at the Harbor” by Danielle Deulen
Finalists:
“The Waitress at Atwaters” by Joyce S. Brown
“Cemetery, Victoriana” by Mary Elizabeth Parker
“Holes in the World” by Penelope Scambly Schott
“In an Old Western” by Susan Sonde
All poems will be published in Smartish Pace, Issue 17 (spring 2010)
Enter the 2010 contest!
Past Winners
2008: Anne-Marie Thompson
2007: Katy Didden
2006: Claire Keyes
2005: Carry McHugh
2004: Dawn Lonsinger
Poems from all previous winners (1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes) can be found in the Contests section of this website.
Don Paterson Wins Queen's Medal
December 31st, 2009
For his book Rain, Scottish poet Don Paterson was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (Buckingham Palace). Carol Ann Duffy, who chaired the judging panel, said Paterson's work was "poetry of bravery and conviction". The medal, which was established in 1933, recognises excellence in poetry published in the last year. Previous recipients included Sir John Betjeman, Ted Hughes, WH Auden and Stevie Smith.
