outdoors in Brooklyn

Molly Gross and Drew Pisarra, two conceptual artists otherwise known as Saint Flashlight (previously mentioned here), put poetry in unexpected places — on telephone poles, coffee sleeves, movie marquees, and, currently, on lighted screens and window monitors at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

For The Will of the City, Saint Flashlight invited playwrights and poets to pen sonnets inspired by the plays of Shakespeare. The words of more than a dozen poets are now being displayed in rotation at the theater and are also being distributed as printed postcards in the theater lobby. Participating poets include Anya Banerjee, Carol Triffle, Diane Mehta, Emmy Potter, Jeffrey Sweet, Malcolm Tariq, Modesto Flako Jimenez, Mónica de la Torre, Regie Cabico, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, Urayoán Noel, Twinkle Burke, Will Eno, Kate Lutzner, and Steven Gaultney. The Will of the City continues through the end of the year.

See more of this and other Saint Flashlight activations on Facebook and on Instagram @saintflashlight.

world peace, one postcard at a time

World Peace Poets again invite you to participate in World Peace Poetry Postcard Month, sending one peace poem on a postcard each day of February 2022. Founded and managed by Carla Shafer and C.J. Prince, the annual event draws participants from around the world.

To participate, send an e-mail to worldpeacepoets AT gmail.com with your name and complete mailing address. You will receive instructions along with a list of 28 people for your peace poetry exchange. DEADLINE for signups is Saturday, January 22, 2022.

plaques on view

If you’ve been looking for an excuse to visit the newly (and wonderfully) remodeled downtown Bellingham Public Library, it’s here: the plaques of the 2021 Walk Award winners in the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest are now in place and will remain on view until the 2022 plaques are installed.

Along with the ten Walk poems, a plaque features a poem by the contest’s namesake, Sue C. Boynton, and another acknowledges this year’s generous donors: C S Downing, Solon & Sharon Boynton III, Louis & Janet Nelson, Evan Friedman, Jan Pierson, Luther Allen, and George Drake and the Drake Family Fund at Whatcom Community Foundation. Special thanks to the Bellingham Public Library and to the Birchwood Garden Club, which maintains the planters that are home to the plaques.

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pictured: “I Got Lost in my Book” by Peyton Eberhardt

robo-po

As if it’s not challenging enough to write a poem, humans are continually searching for ways that machines can do it better. Call it source code poetry, call it posthuman poetry, call it bot poetry, the efforts blend human and mechanical resources with results that seem ever more convincingly poetic.

Meet Ai-Da. Ai-Da is a robot, an artist, and now a poet. The creation of Aidan Meller, who is the director of the Aidan Meller art dealership in Oxford, England, Ai-Da has cameras in her eyes, mechanical arms, and a lot of human input. She has made drawings, paintings, and sculpture, and this week made her debut as a poet at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, where she offered her own poetry gleaned from the complete text of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. See video, and read more, including Carol Rumens’s comments on the poet’s efforts, in The Guardian.

today

cast your vote

The Choice Awards Opening Round Nominees for Best Poetry 2021 (and all the other literary categories) are now posted on Goodreads. The opening round continues through November 28, 2021; the final round runs November 30 through December 5; the winners will be announced on Thursday, December 9, 2021. Cast your votes for the books you love.

poetry is everywhere

Chicago is home to the Poetry Foundation and the American Writers Museum, so perhaps it should not be surprising to find poets and poetry seeping into every aspect of life in the Windy City. Indeed, at 201 West Madison, downtown, in the heart of Chicago’s Loop, you can self-park in The Poetry Garage.

There, instead of struggling to remember whether your car is parked on 4 or 5, you have Emily Dickinson or W.H. Auden to remind you. Plus, while you’re waiting for the elevator, there’s a poem to read, courtesy of the floor’s official poet.

Built in 1988, with a facade designed by Lucien Lagrange, the self-park structure was rebranded as The Poetry Garage in 2011.

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Thanks to Rick Lupert and The Poetry Superhighway for the heads up!

fellowship opportunity

We don’t often post job opportunities, but this fellowship for an 18-month, full-time position with one of the region’s finest poetry presses seems too good to pass by. Visit the Copper Canyon Press employment page for details. (Sorry for the late notice; application deadline is tomorrow, Sunday, November 21,2021).

a gift of inspiration

The ever-popular Two Sylvias Advent Calendar of Poetry Prompts is back for 2021 with all new prompts. Visit Two Sylvias for details on Advent Calendars and more.

National Book Awards

In last night’s awards ceremony, the National Book Foundation announced the winners of the 2021 National Book Awards. One book is selected in each of five categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature.

This year’s winner in poetry is Floaters (W.W. Norton) by Martín Espada. Find it at your local independent bookstore.