Tag Archives: #FFP
2014 Featured Festival Poet: C. Dale Young
October 18, 2014Measured and precise. Reflective and kind. The artistry in C. Dale Young’s poems resonate with his “real” job. Young is a physician–an oncology radiologist–and has said that because of the demands of his work, he only writes four or five … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: A. Van Jordan
October 6, 2014One stereotypical image of a writer is a mysterious figure, sitting in a room that is darkened but for a desklamp, hunched over a notepad (or typewriter, or laptop…). The particulars of the scene may vary, but one thing … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Rachel Wiley
October 6, 2014Rachel Wiley is tough. A force on the slam scene, she stands at the mic, loudly and proudly delivering her thoughts on body image and the media, race relations in the U.S., gender and sexuality, tattoos and OkCupid. Rachel Wiley … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Gary Snyder
October 6, 2014Raised on a small dairy farm that bordered on the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, from an early age Gary Snyder had a strong sense of our connection to the natural world. Surviving on a subsistence farm in the Great … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Brenda Shaughnessy
October 2, 2014Reading Brenda Shaughnessy’s poetry aloud is a delicious process of tasting alliteration, savoring rhyme, swallowing the beat, feeling your pulse find the poem’s time and your breath naturally catch in all of the right places, until you know in your … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
September 20, 2014Much of my work has to do with the self and the conflicts with the external world. I was never just at war with myself—I was at war with the world I live in, and that was my true subject. … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Patrick Rosal
September 20, 2014Pat Rosal was born and raised in New Jersey and has written “love poems” to this wonderful state, which is just one of the reasons I will always have a soft spot in my heart for him. Watch him read … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: James Richardson
September 12, 2014Only the most patient observer could write the kind of poems James Richardson writes. Not patient the way we tend to think of it: “be patient,” the admonition, scold or punishment. Or “waiting patiently,” which usually means waiting longer than … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Alice Oswald
September 12, 2014Listen to T.S. Eliot prize-winner Alice Oswald read the final section of her book-length poem, Memorial, which, instead of attempting a direct translation, retells the Illiad as a series of memorials for the many who died in the Trojan War. … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Tomás Q. Morín
September 9, 2014Tomás Q. Morín is a story teller. His voice is dark and mysterious, rich with imagination and lilting with absurdity. A Larger Country, Morín’s first book of poems, conjures the image of a cloaked figure sitting fireside, spinning tales. He … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Sharon Olds
August 29, 2014Photo by Marcus Mam, Vogue, September 2012 Through ten collections of poems, Sharon Olds has turned an unflinching eye toward the ecstasies and sorrows of living in the human body. Every stage of life is meticulously observed and explored: childhood, … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Rachel McKibbens
August 26, 2014Photo courtesy of rachelmckibbens.com Rachel McKibbens’s poetry feels like a product of dark magic–not meaning it is evil or bad, but rather a miracle arisen from misery. McKibbens is a phoenix, proud and resplendent amongst her ashes. She starts with … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Anis Mojgani
August 25, 2014Photo by Jered Scott Anis Mogjani is a contagious poet. His poems make you want to fall in love with the world all over again. To look at the world with fresh eyes, to wonder and to marvel. His combination … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Shara McCallum
August 22, 2014“I’m equally interested in myth as much as I’m interested in history, both personal and public. I also have always loved best three things, which explain why I became a poet: song, story and metaphor.” Have you ever wished you … Continue reading
2014 Featured Festival Poet: Rebecca Lindenberg
August 20, 2014Rebecca Lindenberg’s fascination with language is apparent and infectious throughout Love, An Index, her first book of poems. Each poem underscores both the power and ineptitude of language in the face of the ineffable, and one would be hard-pressed to … Continue reading