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Essays on
poetry matters by Martin Lammon Poems,
interviews, essays, and more, featuring a poet who matters to me and, I hope,
to you A poem,
past or present, formal or free verse, that matters. Selected
correspondence from readers who matter Links to
Internet media articles on poetry, other news and events The web
pages of the print version of Arts & Letters |
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Many
poets and writers, students, and teachers of creative writing attend the
annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP)
for talks, readings, and other events relating to contemporary poetry and
poetics. AWP has been an important organization to me for 20 years, offering
a community of writers and readers who care about contemporary poetry and
literature. —ML |
At the 2007 AWP Conference
in |
Links to
important organizations devoted to Poetry Matters AWP’s publication features
articles, interviews, and news relating to contemporary literature. See also AWP’s home page. The Academy web site
offers information about poets, links to interviews, poems, and other
features (both print and audio files), news relating to poetry, and other
information. Founded in 1910, one of the
nation’s oldest organizations devoted to poetry. Their web site provides
links to many useful poetry resources as well as PSA news. News, interviews,
articles, and more, including information about literary contests and
submitting work to literary journals. The nation’s oldest
journal devoted to poetry (founded in 1912), it is now published by The Poetry Foundation, one of the largest
literary foundations in the world. This web site features a
new poem each day, as well as other interviews and articles, and includes
archives of past poems and poets featured. There are many excellent
literary journals publishing fine work, but Ploughshares offers an outstanding archive of contributors and
their work on its web site. Why these
links? This list is not meant to
be exhaustive. There are so many sites on the Internet devoted to poetry
(many of them that are not really informed or helpful), so I offer this list
of sites to help younger or less experienced readers and writers locate sites
that can help them find important information. These sites also provide links
to other useful, credible web sites relating to poetry and contemporary
literature. I may from time to time add to these permanent links, but mainly
I will limit new links to the updated “News that Matters” page. Use “Reader
Response” if you know of a link to a web site that might relate to
features published on this web site, and I will consider adding the link to
the “News that Matters” page (if your response is not published with link
included). Please understand that it’s not possible to include every link to “News
that Matters” we might receive. But we will consider everything sent to “Poetry
Matters”! |
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Who Keeps Killing Poetry? Recently,
the President of the Poetry Foundation, John Barr, wrote an article that
criticized contemporary poets, poetry, and MFA programs. Not surprisingly,
Barr cited Dana Gioia’s “Can Poetry Matter?” essay,
making many of the same claims that Gioia did. In
the December 2006 Writer’s Chronicle,
editor D.W. Fenza (who is also the Executive
Director of AWP), wrote a response to Barr, “Who Keeps Killing Poetry,” arguing
that critics have long complained about the “decline” in poetry (and the rise
of MFA programs), often with little real cause, except their own assumptions
about what poetry should be, who should write poetry, and which poets should
matter. If
you read my essay in “Notes from Milledgeville,” you can figure out where I
stand in this debate. But read for yourself John Barr’s article and David Fenza’s
deliberate response. |
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The News Online Philanthropist
Ruth Lilly’s $200 million gift to Poetry
in 2002 led to the creation of the Poetry Foundation in 2003 as well as an
ongoing and controversial response to the effect that Lilly’s gift has had.
In brief: After Lilly’s gift, the editor of Poetry for 20 years, Joseph Parisi,
hired Christian Wiman to be the magazine’s new
editor while Parisi would head the new foundation.
However, after a few months, Parisi resigned, or
was relieved, depending on whom you talk to, and the Poetry Foundation
inevitably named former Wall Street executive John Barr as President. An
interesting New Yorker account of
this story ( I
don’t agree with all the changes at Poetry,
but I do know Chris Wiman, and even if I don’t
always agree with him, I believe that he is a sincere and knowledgeable
editor, critic, and poet. As for John Barr and the Poetry Foundation, I
disagree with the ways they wish to “change” and promote poetry (see David Fenza’s response
to John Barr referred to earlier for a position I do agree with). Dana
Goodyear’s article included this insightful criticism from poet and
translator Richard Howard, responding to the Poetry Foundation’s efforts:
“They want to change poetry—poetry changes itself. You can’t make poetry
itself do something.” Amen. —ML |
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News from Where I Live In
1995, I sold my house and most of my possessions so I’d have time and money
to live for a season (just after Labor Day to just before Christmas) in I
read a lot of arguments against the
“business” of poetry (MFA programs, foundations and associations, prizes) as
well as for a more formal approach
to both the practice and promotion of poetry. But I believe that poets can,
if they are devoted to poetry, live a deliberate life that includes walking
in the forest or on the beach, teaching in universities or workshops, riding
buses and trains in foreign countries, winning awards and giving readings,
learning to speak a new language, writing a grant to fund a reading series,
building a fire, building a portfolio for one’s retirement.... But I also
believe poetry is an art that requires careful and prolonged study and
practice, whether in the company of mentors and other writers in a
university, or on one’s own, or (more often) both. Somewhere
between Thoreau’s “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”
and Donald Hall’s “Poetry and Ambition” there is a
world in which I live and work. I am devoted to poetry, my students, my wife,
my community. The “News from Where I Live” might be found in The New Yorker or the Milledgeville Union-Recorder, in Poetry Magazine or Georgia College’s “Early
College” seventh-graders’ poems, in the rain forests of Costa Rica or the
woods behind my house. It’s a big world that grows smaller every day. —ML Return to Arts & Letters:
Poetry Matters Go
to Reader Response to make a comment |
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