Poets & Writers

The Poetry Coalition Takes Flight

Source: THE WRITTEN IMAGE uuIn his ongoing series Children of Grass, artist B. A. Van Sise photographs American poets who are influenced by Walt Whitman. Each photo is based on a poem—the one above of Nikki Giovanni is inspired by her poem “Allowables”—and a concept developed by Van Sise in collaboration with the poet. Van Sise, who also happens to be one of Whitman’s closest living descendants, hopes to photograph eighty poets, and since he began the project in Spring 2016, he has featured more than twenty-five, including Robert Hass, Rita Dove, Ada Limón, Robert Pinsky, and Cornelius Eady. The project can be viewed on Van Sise’s Instagram account, @b.a.vansise.

Poetry Is Going Extinct,Government Data Show.” “Does Poetry Still Matter?” “Poetry Is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care?” These headlines, the likes of which seem to crop up on the Internet every year, suggest the same thing: Poetry is no longer relevant in America. No one reads it, and no one cares. “Thankfully, they’re wrong,” says Jennifer Benka, executive director of the Academy of

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Poets & Writers

Poets & Writers17 min read
Recent Winners
Karisma Price of New Orleans won the 2023 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize for “The Art of London Firearms.” She received $1,000, and her poem was published in the September/October 2023 issue of American Poetry Review. The editors judged. The annual aw
Poets & Writers2 min read
EDITOR’S Note
WHEN I WAS TEN YEARS OLD I LEARNED A HARD LESSON ABOUT trust—and the value of hard work and the power of humility, but mostly trust—that has endured over the years, solidifying into a kind of fence post in the center of my mind that I’ve held on to d
Poets & Writers6 min read
The Contest You Didn’t Enter
FEW literary honors inspire as many mixed emotions as “best” lists. These festivities are still primarily annual, still primarily relegated to Q4, but in recent times the promotional bonanza seems to have exploded, both in terms of the number of lis

Related