John Guzlowski

Yes, as we all know, it’s National Poetry Month, but as many do not know, poetry is not just about trees, flowers and birds. Often, as in the work of some of the greatest poets – and as in the work of today’s poet – it’s about much more than that.

With people fleeing oppression and violence all over the world, there couldn’t be a better time to talk about the contributions made by immigrants and refugees to our literary culture, which is another way of saying to our lives. Today we honor John Guzlowski, Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Eastern Illinois University. Born in a refugee camp in Germany after World War II, he came to the U.S. with his family as a Displaced Person in 1951. His Roman Catholic parents had been Polish slave laborers in Nazi Germany during the war and had barely survived. Continue reading Poetry Monday: John Guzlowski

Walter Hess

We’re proud to introduce Walter Hess, whose strong personal history is the source of much of his poetry – and what makes it so compelling.

He was born in Germany in 1931. Those two facts alone suggest what was to come, and what didn’t. Subsequent to Kristall Nacht and his father’s relatively brief incarceration in Dachau, his family managed to emigrate
in 1939, first to Ecuador and then, in 1940, to the U.S., where they settled in upper Manhattan’s Washington Heights. He was educated entirely in New York City public schools, receiving a B.A. in history from CCNY in 1952 and returning years later, to study for and receive an M.A. from their graduate writing program. Continue reading Postry Monday: Walter Hess

               REMEMBERING LUCILLE CLIFTON

Here we are, deep into the winter of the big snows in strange places and very little in the usual places, (sorry, New York), and ready once more to think about poetry.

Lucille Clifton was not only a famous African-American poet but one of our greatest and most memorable American poets. Twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1985, she was a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz,  Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland,  a visiting professor at Columbia University, and in 2006 a fellow at Continue reading POETRY MONDAY: FEBRUARY 1, 2016

William Jay Smith

Remembering William Jay Smith ( 1918-2015)

Happy New Year, everyone — meaning, really, that we hope 2016 will be a better year on many fronts than 2015 was. On the poetry front, we lost another member of the greatest generation. William Jay Smith died last August in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, at the age of 97, after having lived for many years in Cummington, Massachusetts, near his good friend, Richard Wilbur. You may have read Smith’s obituary in the New York Times and elsewhere, but if you are interested in knowing more about his  life, you may also want to read his two memoirs, Army Brat (Persea Books, 1982) and Dancing in the Garden: A Bittersweet Love Affair with France (Bay Oak Publishers, Ltd., 2008).

Shortly after the publication of his new memoir, we featured him on these pages. It was for  November 2008, during our own first year. We remember him now with a renewed sense of loss and a reprise of that post.

Irene Willis
Poetry Editor

William Jay Smith

William Jay Smith, as many of you already know, is one of America’s greatest poets, translators and literary critics.  He was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (the position now known as Poet Laureate) from 1968-1970 Continue reading POETRY MONDAY: JANUARY 4, 2016

Click Here to Read: Evgeny Kissin Will Indulge His Love of Yiddish Poetry at Carnegie Hall By Vivien Schweitzer in The New York Times on December 13, 2015.

Evgeny Kissin, shown in Central Park, will play works by Jewish composers and recite poetry Wednesday at Carnegie Hall. Credit Sasha Arutyunova for The New York Times.

          Norman Stock

Since I’m writing this on Sunday, let’s hope we don’t pick up our papers or turn on the news this morning to learn of yet another mass shooting. As poetry lovers, you were probably as horrified as I to learn that one response to the San Bernardino murders here in the U.S. was an increase in gun purchases.

Editorializing over for a time, here is a brief introduction to a fine poet writing from very close to home – Queens – which, for those of you elsewhere, is one of the five boroughs of New York City. Yes, there is more to New York City than Manhattan and Brooklyn (the new Manhattan).

Norman Stock is the author of two books of poetry: Pickled Dreams Naked (NYQ Books, 2010) and Buying Breakfast for My Kamikaze Pilot (Gibbs Smith, 1994, winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Contest). His poems have also appeared in The New Republic, The New York Times, College English, The New York Quarterly, Verse, The New England Review, Denver Quarterly, and many other well-known magazines and anthologies, as well as in textbooks.

Click Here to Purchase: Pickled Dreams Naked by Norman Stock on the NYQ Books website.

Among the many awards he has received for his work are those from Writer’s Voice, Poets & Writers, the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange, Bennington Writing Workshops, and the Tenne Foundation. He was a finalist for
Poet Laureate of Queens. Continue reading POETRY MONDAY: December 6, 2015

Willa Schneberg

Well, everyone, here we are again, well into fall and even back to Standard Time, here in our time zone – and with a strong poet.

I continue to be impressed with the knowledge and compassion of social workers, and Willa Schneberg, an LCSW with a private practice in Portland, Oregon, is no exception. An award-winning poet whose submission was outstanding in its professionalism, she has already authored five poetry collections, one of which, In the Margins of the World, received the Oregon Book Award in Poetry. Her poems have been heard on Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac,” and have appeared in numerous selective literary magazines and anthologies. She has has also been a fellow at both Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Continue reading Poetry Monday: Willa Schneberg

Click Here to Read:  The Poetry Category on this Website.