Carl Phillips has brilliantly answered all of your questions! Rae Armantrout & Mark Doty recently answered questions too. New PQA Poet soon...

Poet(s) currently taking questions: None.

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Adrienne Rich Dies

 
Baltimore native Adrienne Rich, an award-winning poet whose socially conscious work influenced a generation of feminist, gay rights and anti-war activists, has died at 82. She died Tuesday at her ... [ read more ]

Herrera Appointed California Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera was appointed California Poet Laureate by Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday. Herrera, 63 and son of Mexican migrant workers, will be the first Hispanic writer to serve in the post. ... [ read more ]

Lisa Russ Spaar, Smartish Pace Reading - VABook! 2009

Lisa Russ Spaar reading for Smartish Pace at the Virginia Festival of the Book, March 19, 2009. Introduction by Smartish Pace Editor Stephen Reichert.

Interview with Christopher Buckley

In his new book, Star Apocrypha, the poet Christopher Buckley reaches for a higher lyric pitch and succeeds exponentially. Buckley's poetry addresses matters of this world and of the soul, daily life and the lifeof the imagination with brilliant language and finesse. His poems perform aneloquent dance between memory and the here and now, turning time into the verysame stuff as the clouds and stars.In the following interview, the poet discusses contemporary poetry and his latest book, Star Apocrypha.Maggie Paul: Can you recall some of your earliest experiences with poetry and how they influenced your decision to become a poet?Christopher Buckley: My earliest memory of poetry is from Mt. Carmel School in Montecito fourth grade, fifth? I wrote a poem for Mother’s Day in class, the nun passing out white paper and blue construction paper to paste it on. I remember this because I found it years later in a trunk, my mother had saved it. It was in fact in quatrains rhyming abab, three or four of them with sunlight and bluebirds flying about the edges of the stanzas. I think I came across it while I was in college ... [ read more ]

Oracle Figures

Eric Pankey's new book, Oracle Figures, opens with an attempt at opening. The speaker of this, and of all these poems, is one looking for a way in, but "The gate cannot open in the overgrown grass." He continues:        But the way, lit by foxfire and firefly,        By the flint-flash of grit at the pearl's heart,        Is a past words cannot return to history,        To what the swallows inscribe ... [ read more ]