“Great,” she says resignedly. “What I’ll always be known for is writing this poem about how bad things are, and maybe they could be better, but they’re bad.”
poetry
‘Breonna deserved better’
“She is more than an incident report that didn’t offer her dignity in death, to tell the truth of her murder.”
Jericho Brown: ‘Write into the Deep Dark Wreck’
“I grow green with hope. I’d like to end there.”
Moving Literary Life Off the Page
For one poet, conducting a satisfying literary life off-page required living life outside the classroom.
As Impossible and Imperfect as Translation
“But poetry…has helped me to find new meaning within and across linguistic boundaries.”
Reading Lessons
You never stop learning how to read — probably because you also never stop forgetting how to read.
‘They Happen To Be Our Neighbors Across the Span of a Century, But They’re Our Neighbors.’
One hundred summers ago, black Chicagoans were terrorized by whites during the Red Summer. Poet Eve Ewing talks about reaching out to her neighbors across time in “1919.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti at 100: A Reading List
Beat poet and City Lights publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti turns 100 on March 24. Here’s a reading list to celebrate the centenarian.
What Is Poetry?: A Non-Lecture
Lawrence Ferlinghetti delivered this ars poetica in 2003, upon receipt of the Frost Medal.
“How common is the lightning?” Gabrielle Bellot on Yeats, Walcott, and Finding Inspiration
“I want someone to remember even just one of my songs, especially when a night is too silent, and that old gray curls back around me like a shroud, making me wonder, again, if any song of mine will be worth recalling at all.”