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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

On Tuesday we continue our series of prose features with Naeem Murr's "My Poet," from the July/August issue of Poetry:

"Loving my Poet as I do, though, I try hard to understand what a poet is. The first clue lies in the fact that my Poet—every poet—is an insomniac."

Look for it on Tuesday on our news page.

We hope you enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller
Editors

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2. Sponsor Messages

Palm Beach Poetry Festival - Jan 21-26 Workshops
Palm Beach Poetry Festival, January 21-26, 2008, at Old School Square, Delray Beach, FL.  Advanced Workshops ($625): Kim Addonizio, Claudia Emerson, Major Jackson, Thomas Lux, Campbell McGrath, Malena Mörling, Sharon Olds, and C.K. Williams.  Workshops are limited to 12 poets, include one-on-one conference, readings and gala celebration.  Tuition for Advanced workshops is $695, $495 for Intermediate.  Visit the Palm Beach Poetry Festival website for application form and guidelines, or call (561) 868-2063. Application deadline:  October 31, 2006.

Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference
For Poets With a Book-Length Manuscript: first conference to provide the faculty, connections, and method necessary to set poets with a completed or in-process manuscript on a path towards publication.
 
Faculty for 2007 includes editors and publishers: Martha Rhodes (Four Way Books), Jeffrey Levine (Tupelo Press), Jeffrey Shotts (Graywolf Press), Chase Twichell (Ausable Press),  Michael Simms (Autumn House Press) and others; workshop leaders include Joan Houlihan (Concord Poetry Center); Frederick Marchant (Suffolk University), Ellen Doré Watson (Smith College), Daniel Tobin (Emerson College) and others.

Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowships
The Virginia Commission for the Arts announces an August 1, 2007 deadline for this year's Artist Fellowships in Poetry and Music Composition (classical instrumental and jazz). Click here to download the application form.

Riggio Writing Fellows Program at The New School
Announcing the Riggio Writing Fellows program at The New School. With a partial scholarship for each semester in residence, this innovative curriculum of undergraduate writing workshops and close-reading seminars is open to gifted adults who wish to complete the bachelor's degree as a writer in New York City. For more information about The New School Bachelor's Program and the Riggio Fellows, click here.

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Robert Pinsky introduces a poem by Henri Cole. (The Washington Post)
• Matthew Reynolds on John Dryden. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Les Murray's Bip*** Houses reviewed by Alexandra Yurkovsky. (San Francisco Chronicle).
• Roy Foster on W. B. Yeats. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Adam Thorpe reviews Fiona Sampson's Common Prayer. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Henry L. Miller remembers Philip Booth. (Bangor Daily News)
• Songs of Ourselves: The Uses of Poetry in America, by Joan Shelley Rubin, reviewed by Adam Kirsch. (The New York Sun)
• Ted Kooser introduces a poem by Kim Noriega. (American Life in Poetry)

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4. Selected New Arrivals

These and other new arrivals are available for purchase via Poetry Daily/Amazon.com.

• Ripening, Paul Hunter
• Limbs of the Pine, Peaks of the Range, David D. Horowitz, Ed.
• Black Moods: Collected Poems, Frank Marshall Davis, John Edgar Tidwell, ed.
• The Matter of the Casket, Thom Ward
• Fragment of the Head of a Queen, Cate Marvin
• Bending Under the Yellow Police Tapes, James Doyle

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5. This Week’s Featured Poets

Monday - Jane Mead
Tuesday - Fanny Howe
Wednesday - Todd Boss
Thursday - Joanna Klink
Friday - James Hoch
Saturday - James Schuyler
Sunday - Arthur Sze

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6. Featured Poets July 9 - July 15, 2007

These and other past featured poets may be found in our archive:

Monday - Julie King
Tuesday - Emile Nelligan / tr. Anne Carson
Wednesday - Jennifer Grotz
Thursday - Sarah Hannah
Friday - Laurie Kutchins
Saturday - Sebastian Matthews
Sunday - Pamela Gemin

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

These poems will be retired from our archive during the coming week.

David Barber - "To the Trespasser "
Barry Hill - "Sketches from Lucian Freud Paintings at the Tate, 2003"
Rae Armantrout - "Versed"
Kevin Stein - "Postcard to Henry James"
Anne Marie Macari - "Mozart's Requiem"
Dean Young - "Sean Penn Anti-Ode"
Andrea Hollander Budy - "Woman in the Painting"

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8. Poem From Last Year

Woman in the Painting

Her face has disappeared. This happens
more often than you think. She sits
at a table with her hands in her lap
beside her husband, his arms
folded over one another, blue bowls
and empty glasses set out before them
and a pitcher of translucent milk.

If the woman had eyes, they would be
the hazel eyes of my mother,
her sadness exposed. If a mouth,
my mother's, her upper lip
with the scar she hid with lipstick.
Like my mother, she would be better
at listening than speaking. Afternoons
after high school my friends would come
when their boyfriends tired of them.
They would sit at a table like this one,
white and gleaming with food,
and she would listen until it was time
for my father to return, her dark hair
pulled behind her ears, her silence
laconic and wise.

Perhaps the woman in the painting
tried to speak, as my mother did,
to her father, raising her face toward him
like the mutt she once begged for,
already cowering but finally unable
to utter a sound, language transformed
to movement, to the trembling body
suppliant before him, her pupils
suddenly large and black, tears
not yet formed but forming.

The husband's face is opulent, his eyes
the color of olives at the bottom of a drink.
Perhaps the woman believes the man
she married is only her husband. For a while
that's what we all think.

Andrea Hollander Budy
Woman in the Painting
Autumn House Press

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Copyright © 2006 by Andrea Hollander Budy. All rights reserved. Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.