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While it's safe to say the twenty-first century has so far not been a great time for American diplomacy, a handful of new poetry anthologies, from Norton, Dalkey Archive Press, North Atlantic Books, and Graywolf Press, offer proof that American poetic diplomacy might be entering a new golden age.
Five years ago, as poets and readers attended the annual StAnza poetry festival, the war began in Iraq. This year’s festival, held from March 12 to March 16, acknowledged that anniversary explicitly with its two themes, “Poetry & Conflict” and “Sea of Tongues.”
Can political fiction matter? Stephen Elliott, the editor of Politically Inspired, an anthology published by MacAdam/Cage in 2003, and its follow-up, Stumbling and Raging: More Politically Inspired Fiction, published by MacAdam/Cage this month, casts his vote in the “definitely yes” column.
Poet Susan Atefat-Peckham and her six-year-old son were killed in a car accident in Ghor Safi, Jordan, on February 7, 2004. A professor in the MFA program at Georgia College & State University, Atefat-Peckham was in the Middle East as a Fulbright scholar teaching creative writing at the University of Jordan. She was 33. The following Direct Quote was originally posted on October 12, 2001, following the publication of her book That Kind of Sleep.
Mark Doty's work has always straddled the line between a sense of belonging and alienation, so it's no surprise to find the crucial question, Where do I live? at the heart of his forthcoming book
In 1995 Brian Henry joined forces with Andrew Zawacki to resurrect Verse magazine. In 2000 he elicited the help of Matthew Zapruder and co-founded Verse Press. Along the way Henry, an assistant professor of English and director of the creative writing program at the University of Georgia, established a broad international reputation, both for his editorial and critical efforts, and for his sizable creative output.
Helon Habila read novels as a boy to shelter himself from the brutal reality of his country’s political instability. Now, the author of Waiting for an Angel believes his generation of Nigerian novelists should help change that reality.
In February New Directions will publish New Collected Poems by George Oppen. Born almost a century ago, Oppen fought and was injured in World War II, published his first book when he was in his mid-twenties, then stopped writing and joined the Communist Party. Twenty-five years later he resumed writing and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his book Of Being Numerous. He died in 1984.
“We can’t say it’s the end of irony,” said poet Carolyn Kizer, in light of the terrorist attacks on September 11. “It’s the beginning. But irony is seldom appreciated by American culture.”
