Poetry News

Claudia Rankine, a poet born in Jamaica whose experimental verse and bracing social commentary have earned her high praise from her peers, has won a $50,000 prize designed to help her gain more attention from the general public.

The Zonta Club of the Michigan Capitol Area will celebrate its 30th anniversary with an evening of smooth jazz and red carpet treatment Thursday at the Radisson Hotel, 111 N. Grand Ave. Nationally renowned jazz saxophonist Tim Cunningham returns to his hometown with friends to provide smooth, jazzy sounds for this special occasion.

Poet Richard Blanco is the author of City of a Hundred Fires, Directions to the Beach of the Dead and Looking for the Gulf Motel.

In this book of homemade psalms, Brooks Haxton brings the poetry of the original psalmists, their awe and their music, into our world of jet planes and space travel, automatic rifles and suburban pleasures.

The Fresno County Library's Bookshelf column shares suggestions for books, music, and other items and provides information about library programs.

April is National Poetry Month, a monthlong, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States.

Parker School is pleased to announce junior Sean Dunnington earned second place in the Poetry Out Loud State Finals on March 2 at the Tenney Theatre, Cathedral of St. Andrew's in Honolulu.

Free Verse 2, a collection of poetry, prose, and song written by probation clients, staff, and community members, is the second in a series of literary journals created at the Bronx probation office.

The most recent challenge, to incorporate a list of poets' surnames - motion, bridges, wilde, gray, cope, hood, burns and browning - into a poem or piece of prose, presented ample opportunity for showing off.

Iranian author Mahmud Dowlatabadi delivers a speech during the German Poetry Night at the Mahmud Afshar Foundation in Tehran on April 16, 2014.

Poetry in an unlikely place: In a grim urban shanty town in the middle of Sao Paulo, budding poets from the poorest sections of Brazilian society get together weekly to compose and recite poetry.

A young Korean American poet has received a $5,000 award for first-time writers that also ensures the publication and thousands of sales of her debut collection.

Others like to check their stocks, read the comics, do the crossword puzzle or follow their favorite sports teams.

The city-organized festival "Hartford Loves Poetry" culminates Saturday with an afternoon grand finale at the downtown Hartford Public Library, where a cultural range of speakers will read poems in more than 20 languages.

Some of the first literary pieces introduced to children are nursery rhymes and Mother Goose poems.

Joy Harjo was raised on music, dancing the jitterbug with her mother on the kitchen floor and listening to a jazz trumpeter in the family's black Cadillac, purchased with her father's "Indian oil money."

Magic realism was only one of his gifts. From crime stories and village folklore to romance and satire, Gabriel Garcia Marquez brought poetry to virtually every popular genre.

When's the last time you read a poem? For most people, it's probably been a long time.

Hip hop has influenced a generation of poets coming to prominence, poets I call "The Inheritors of Hip Hop."

Lecturer Alistair Robinson, the degree programme leader for Journalism and News Journalism at the University of Sunderland, is launching The Land Before Yoghurt next week.