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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

A very quick update on our extended spring fund drive: our totals through Thursday's online and snail mail: $46,315. Hearfelt thanks to all who have helped keep the momentum going!

No harangues this month, just a weekly reminder that we're very close to our 2008 goal. Join our Poetry Month stalwarts with a contribution to PD and help us close the gap to $55,000! You'll find everything you need to contribute by credit card, PayPal, or check on our secure donation page, where you will also be able to follow our progress toward our goal.

In the meantime: on Tuesday we continue our series of prose features with Peter Campion's "The Wolf, the Snake, the Hog, Not Wanting in Me: American Poetry and Political Protest," from the new issue of Poetry Northwest :

"Criticism of protest poetry appears often enough to be familiar. But with two recent essays in response to Poets Against the War, both W. S. Di Piero and David Wojahn offer a more forceful articulation. They point to an irony: Not only does most protest poetry remain mere versified opinion, but it tends strangely to mirror the smugness it rails against... To understand the uniquely American directions such a quarrel can take, and to see how it can mount effective protest against the political structures we live inside, I want to look at two very different passages from Whitman."

Look for it on Tuesday on our news page.

Thank you all once again for your loyalty to Poetry Daily and thank you again and again for your support! Enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller
Editors

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2. Sponsor Messages

2008 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest Winner
KR is pleased to announce that Alice Hoffman has chosen Cara Blue Adams' story "I Met Loss The Other Day" as the winner of the 2008 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest. Adams’ story was chosen from among nearly 300 entries. Her story will appear in an upcoming issue of The Kenyon Review, and she will attend the KR Writers Workshop this summer as part of the contest prize. Congrats, Cara!

Shenandoah
A German air show suddenly goes wrong / Brandon Schrand’s journey to self down the bone road / Ha Jin, Laphroaig, Lucy Ferriss, Jennifer Chang / Julie Speed’s red horse / "a knife at the center of the earth" / a new look at Frost's "The Star-Splitter" /  Joyce Carol Oates's "Bleeed" / David Kirby on the Impressionists and "The Phantom Empire" / mothers & sons / sea & shore / Albert Goldbarth on celery, Vermeer, mules, hard evidence, ore & "Trees and flowers – again?" / Laura Brodie's account of a woman in desperate need of Spiderman / AND "fireflies and wind-stir, on which these words ride" Visit us online...

Latino Poetry Review
Latino Poetry Review (LPR) publishes book reviews, essays, and interviews with an eye towards spurring inquiry and dialogue. LPR recognizes that Latino and Latina poets in the 21st century embrace, and work out of, a multitude of aesthetics. With this in end, its critical focus is the poem and its poetics. LPR is published by Letras Latinas—the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

West Chester University Poetry Conference
Join the nation's only conference focused on poetic craft and verse technique. Our 14th year (June 4-7) features keynote speaker Richard Wilbur, and distinguished workshop faculty Dick Allen, Dick Davis, Moira Egan, Rhina P. Espaillat, Rachel Hadas, H.L. Hix, Andrew Hudgins, Mark Jarman, David Mason, Eric McHenry, Molly Peacock,  J. Allyn Rosser, Robert B. Shaw, A.E. Stallings, Timothy Steele, Diane Thiel, Catherine Tufariello, David Sanders, Adam Kirsch and Dana Gioia. Class sizes are small.

In addition to workshops there are panel discussions, readings, poetry & song concerts, conversation, socials, and much more. Set in historic West Chester, Pennsylvania the conference nurtures craft in a pleasantly
egalitarian community.

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 includes editors and publishers Jeffrey Levine (Tupelo Press), Martha Rhodes (Four Way Books), Jeffrey Shotts (Graywolf Press), Susan Kan (Perugia Press), Peter Conners (BOA) and others; workshop leaders include Joan Houlihan (Concord Poetry Center); Frederick Marchant (Suffolk University), Ellen Doré Watson (Smith College), Steven Cramer (Lesley University), Daniel Tobin (Emerson College) and others.

Mendocino Coast Writers Conference
The Mendocino Coast Writers Conference announces its 2008 faculty: Daphne Gottlieb, poet, Susan Woolridge, poet, James D. Houston, Novelist, Marianne Vil***uva, Short Fiction, Jody Gehrman, Young Adult, Michael Datcher, Memoir. For more details, visit our website ...

Catskill Poetry Workshop
The Catskill Poetry Workshop at Hartwick College — July 6-12 — will offer an opportunity for talented writers to apply themselves to the craft and art of poetry in a supportive atmosphere. Faculty includes Stephen Dunn, Ray Gonsalez, Dave Smith, Chase Twichell, Judith Vollmer, Michael Waters, and Director Carol Frost. For information about the 2008 Workshop, visit us online...

Joiner Center Writers' Workshop
William Joiner Center's 21st Annual Writers' Workshop, June 16-27, at UMass Boston, situated on Boston Harbor. Taught by a distinguished and caring faculty.

Instruction in poetry, fiction, non-fiction, playwriting, and translation. Faculty includes: Fred Marchant, Demetria Martínez, Doug Anderson, Brian Turner, Larry Heinemann, Carolyn Forché, Sam Hamill, Bruce Weigl, and others. Workshop classes, seminars, consultations and reading series.

Letter of interest and writing sample required. Tuition: $400 two weeks; $220 one week; deposit, $25. Visit us online for more details. Phone: 617-287-5850. E-mail: michael.sullivan@umb.edu

Off The Grid Press
Off The Grid Press is looking for poetry manuscripts by people over 60.  Please see our website for guidelines...

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Christopher Fletcjer describes postcards from Philip Larkin to Monica Jones. (Times Online)
• David Orr reviews Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form by Helen Vendler. (New York TImes)
• Mary Karr a poem by Sarah Harwell. (The Washington Post)
• Nicholas Lezard on the selected poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt, edited by Alice Oswald. (Guardian Unlimited)
• John Mullan navigates Alexander Pope's "The Dunciad". (Guardian Unlimited)
• Bloodaxe Books celebrates its birthday with In Person: 30 Poets, edited by Neil Astley, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce, reviewed by Frances Leviston. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Darrell Jónsson looks back at Allen Ginsberg's 1965 visit to Prague. (The Prague Post)
• And more....

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4. Selected New Arrivals

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

Looking for Cover, Maria Famà (Bordighera Press)

Inta's Poems III, Inta Ezergailis (Ulysses House)

A Matinee in Plato's Cave, Rob Griffith (Water Press and Media)

Opening Day, William Corbett (Hanging Loose Press)

Making a Map of the River, Thorpe Moeckel (Iris Press)

Narcissus, Cecilia Woloch (Tupelo Press)

In the Mode of Disappearance, Jonathan Weinert (Nightboat Books)

And more....

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5. This Week’s Featured Poets

Monday - Brian Turner
Tuesday - Julio Martínez Mesanza / tr. Don Bogen
Wednesday - Seth Abramson
Thursday - Yi-Fen Chou
Friday - Darcie Dennigan
Saturday - Allan Peterson
Sunday - Phillis Levin

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6. Featured Poets May 5 - May 11, 2008

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

Monday - Martha Rhodes
Tuesday - C. D. Wright
Wednesday - Aaron Baker
Thursday - Thomas Lux
Friday - Cecily Parks
Saturday - Michele Glazer
Sunday - Jynne Dilling Martin

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

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

Sun Yung Shin - "The Vanishing Twin"
Greg Delanty - "Snow and Wind Canticle to an Unborn Child"
Bob Hicok - "Oh my pa-pa"
Stuart Dybek - "Pan"
Cathrine Grøndahl / translated from the Norwegian by Roger Greenwald - "Selected Exercises in Case Law II"
John Gallaher - "The War President's Afternoon Tea"
David Lehman - "Obit"

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8. Poem From Last Year

Obit

   His art was happy. —Yeats

No art is precise each
depends on errors accidents but
he looked at it with
the neutrality of an aloof
museum guard and secret visionary
of green hills in the south
where he wanted to go
with face and nose pressed
to a sweet-shop window
but who knew his mind?
Born in Russia lived poor
in Paris sold his first
paintings lived with a dancer
as hot tempered as he
and went to California to
die when the twentieth century
was still an impossible future
not yet an important failure.

David Lehman
American Poetry Review
May / June 2007

Copyright © 2007 by World Poetry, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.