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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 ]

Elizabeth Arnold, Smartish Pace Reading

Elizabeth Arnold reading for Smartish Pace at Artomatic in Washington, DC on June 12, 2009. Intro by Stephen Reichert of Smartish Pace.

Interview with Aaron Poochigian

Traci O’Dea (Associate Editor, Smartish Pace): How has translating Sappho affected your own poetry?

Aaron Poochigian: I had always wanted each line of my poetry to be songlike and ravishing. Now, after having lived with Sappho for about two years, I have a better sense of what that means. But I should be more specific about her influence. Many of Sappho’s poems give the reader the impression that he or she is eavesdropping on a private conversation, as in the following fragment:As you are dear to me go find a youngerBed as your due.I can’t stand being the old one any longer,Living with you.I now readily slip into the conversational mode in my own work. Sappho, in fact, is credited with pioneering the “personal” in poetry, partly because she gives the reader this window into the intimate. She also makes frequent use of what I call “choral” expression—that is, the speaker as a first person plural “we” representing a group of people. I now often write poems in “group voices.” Perhaps the poem “The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis” is the best evidence of her influence on my work.     The Marriage ... [ read more ]

The Water Between Us

Shara McCallum's first collection, The Water Between Us, may be a typical first book of poetry that moves through the torments and glories of growing up, but it is not a typical collection. McCallum's poems are startling in their breadth of experience and language. From the beginning McCallum asks us to free our expectations with her apt epigraph: "Only the magic and the dream are true. All the rest's a lie." If you don't believe ... [ read more ]