Charlotte Mandel has published eight books of poetry, the most recent, Life Work from David Robert Books. Previous titles include Rock Vein Sky and Sight Lines from Midmarch Arts Press, and two poem-novellas of feminist biblical revision—The Life of Mary, with foreword by Sandra M. Gilbert, and The Marriages of Jacob. Her verse play, The Gardener’s Wife appears on Verse Wisconsin, with audio. She founded and coordinated the Eileen W. Barnes Award to publish a first book by a woman over forty, and edited Saturday’s Women, co-edited by Rachel Hadas and Maxine Silverman. Her awards include the New Jersey Poets Prize, two fellowships in poetry from New Jersey State Council on the Arts, residencies at art colonies including a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation fellowship at Yaddo. Continue reading Poetry Monday: July 7, 2014

On Inaugural Poetry

Few of us who were alive and watching then will forget Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. There were the almost heartbreaking moments as he struggled in bright sunlight to read the text of the poem he had composed for the occasion and then abandoned it and recited from memory a Kennedy favorite, “The Gift Outright,” changing a line at the end to make it, as he said, “more hopeful.” It was thrilling not only to see and hear the great Frost himself but to realize that poetry had become part of our national celebration. Continue reading POETRY MONDAY: June 2, 2014

Click Here to Read: Responses: Poetry with Patrick Rosal and Jean Valentine on June 14, 2014 at 2:00-3:30 pm.

Continue reading Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too? by Langston Hughes

Those of us still mourning the loss of former U.S.Poet Laureate
Maxine Kumin, who died on February 6 of this year at 88, have a welcome
gift, knowing that she didn’t stop. Her new book, And Short the Season
(New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2014) is available now, and her voice
is as strong as it has always been. Sharp-eyed, keen-witted and ironic
as ever, she shies away from nothing in this collection, dedicated to her
daughter Judith, whom we feel we have watched grow in some
earlier poems. Maxine loved the earth, dogs, animals, her husband Continue reading POETRY MONDAY: May 5, 2014