We're excited to feature Philip Metres @philipmetres.bsky.social and his poem "Ode to the Wallrunners of Gaza" this week! Read the rest of his poem and his discussion questions on our website, linked in bio.
This quote from Le Guin is also emblematic of why you can't be an "A.I. writer". The process is *everything*.
We are so excited to announce that our Special Issue with Guest Editor Sara Abou Rashed is OUT NOW, linked in our bio! We invite you to attend our Zoom Launch Party this Sunday at 2 p.m. EST, where you can hear featured authors read their work!
@ruthawad.bsky.social @philipmetres.bsky.social
Renee Nicole Good (Macklin). 2020 Academy of American Poets Prize, Old Dominion University, "On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs."
make room for wonder
poets.org/2020-on-lear...
I am impeaching Secretary Kristi Noem, who is an incompetent leader and a disgrace to our democracy.
She wreaked havoc in the Chicagoland area and has brought her reign of terror to Minneapolis. One of her rogue ICE agents shot and killed an innocent woman today. It must come to an end.
We highly recommend this brilliant interview with LISA OLSTEIN and Alina Stefanescu from the Poetry Foundation on the archival sources, erasure, and mythology in OLSTEIN’S latest collection, DISTINGUISHED OFFICE OF ECHOES!
Read the full piece at shorturl.at/XyBlR
Another AI rater who started his journey rating responses for Google’s products in early 2024 began to feel he couldn’t trust AI around six months into the job. He was tasked with stumping the model – meaning he had to ask Google’s AI various questions that would expose its limitations or weaknesses. Having a degree in history, this worker asked the model historical questions for the task. “I asked it about the history of the Palestinian people, and it wouldn’t give me an answer no matter how I rephrased the question,” recalled this worker, requesting anonymity, having signed a nondisclosure agreement. “When I asked it about the history of Israel, it had no problems giving me a very extensive rundown. We reported it, but nobody seemed to care at Google.” When asked specifically about the situation the rater described, Google did not issue a statement.
😩
a version of the Poetry Foundation solely built around grants felt like it "maybe should be a different organization.” www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres, published in the Poets on Poetry Series edited by Derek Pollard. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.
Documentary poetry can either amplify marginalized voices or exploit their suffering.
@philipmetres.bsky.social’s DISPATCHES brings together poets wrestling with this distinction, providing crucial guidance for navigating the ethics of writing as witness.
press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...
#Poetry
Front cover of the book ‘Radical Poetics’ by Khadijah Queen, published in the Poets on Poetry Series by the University of Michigan Press edited by Derek Pollard. The cover features a Black woman sitting barefoot in a dimly lit, eclectic space surrounded by books and fabric drapes. The atmosphere is reminiscent of steampunk with a Southern gothic twist. The woman is wearing a pink dress and sitting on a floral-patterned surface. The subtitle reads ‘Essays on Literature & Culture.’
What if emotion IS knowledge?
@khadijahqueen.com’s RADICAL POETICS makes the case that “poetry exists as a valuable tool for understanding,” not despite its emotional resonance, but precisely because of it.
press.umich.edu/Books/R/Radi...
@uofmpress.bsky.social
#Poetry #Books #RadicalPoetics
kind of obsessed with this custom binding for Moby dick by Susan and Chaim Ebanks at Exeter Bookbinders
Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres, published in the Poets on Poetry Series edited by Derek Pollard. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.
How do you teach Palestinian and Israeli literature without pretending the power is equal?
@philipmetres.bsky.social proposes “contrapuntal reading,” and DISPATCHES shows it in practice: what it reveals about both texts, as well as what the stakes are.
press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...
#Books
NEW: Epstein survivors release the most powerful PSA I have ever seen.
Make this go viral so every member of the House of Representatives sees it.
Coming to Brooklyn November 20th @poetrysociety.org !!! poetrysociety.org/events/psa-r...
Good to see @philipmetres.bsky.social featured in The Land:
thelandcle.org/stories/a-li...
It’s another deeply engaging addition to the Poets on Poetry Series, @philipmetres.bsky.social – and a great companion to your latest, DISPATCHES FROM THE LAND OF ERASURE:
press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...
Book cover for ‘Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds’ by Wendy Xu. The book is part of the Poets on Poetry Series, published by the University of Michigan Press and edited by Derek Pollard. The cover image is a striking, full frame close-up photograph of a bronze sculpture of a man's head, angled to fill most of the page. The sculpture is highly dramatic: the man's face is contorted with intense emotion, and his mouth is wide open, as if shouting or screaming. The metal has a dark, mottled verdigris patina. All text is positioned across the lower third of the cover. The title, ‘YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS,’ and the author's name, WENDY XU, m are printed in light gray/off-white text. The subtitle, "FORM, FUTURITY, AND DOCUMENTARY DESIRE," is centered beneath the title and printed in a distinctive pale yellow text.
When does a poem become more than art?
Frontline workers writing pandemic haiku. Layli Long Soldier rewriting congressional resolutions.
YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS asks what happens when poetry stops being about witness and becomes action itself.
press.umich.edu/Books/Y/Your...
Looks fantastic!
"Always the same story: two people, one tree, not enough land or light or love." —Philip Metres @philipmetres.bsky.social
thelandcle.org/stories/a-li...
Book cover for ‘The Imaginary Present: Essays in Quantum Poetics’ by Amy Catanzano, published in the Poets on Poetry Series by the University of Michigan Press. The cover features a pixelated, glitch-art style background in shades of pink, purple, rose, and teal. The title and author name appear in bright pink text on white rectangular l blocks that seem to float over the abstract digital pattern. The subtitle appears in white text on a rose-colored banner.
Physicists at CERN told Amy Catanzano they can use quantum theory but find it "counterintuitive.” She recognized immediately: quantum logic IS poetic logic.
THE IMAGINARY PRESENT explores how poetry can reshape scientific understanding.
@uofmpress.bsky.social
press.umich.edu/Books/T/The-...
Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.
Can you document trauma without exploiting it?
@utopiaminus.bsky.social warns that the “representation of violence can produce its own kind of violence.”
In @philipmetres.bsky.social’s DISPATCHES, poets debate what documentary poetry can and can’t do for justice – and whether writing is enough.
Learn more about @philipmetres.bsky.social’s book and order your copy here:
press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...
Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.
When Israeli forces captured Jaffa in 1948, the municipal archives vanished, erasing Palestinians' legal proof of land ownership.
@philipmetres.bsky.social's DISPATCHES FROM THE LAND OF ERASURE shows how Arab poets have sought to preserve this disappeared history.
press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...
“Sitting close to the center, not very high in the branches, / I heard it hitting the high leaves, and I was happy, // watching it happen without it happening to me.” —Marie Howe, “The Copper Beech” www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48561/...
Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.
When poets debate whether metaphor itself perpetuates harm, every image becomes an ethical choice.
@philipmetres.bsky.social's DISPATCHES FROM THE LAND OF ERASURE captures these heated conversations, changing how we approach poems that engage cultural difference.
press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...
Grateful for this work and the work of the work
Nobody who voted to confirm RFK is fit to hold public office
Host: There are new calls this morning for RFK Jr.'s resignation, and those calls coming from inside HHS itself. More than 1,000 current and former HHS workers are making this demand in a letter released this morning. They say his leadership has "put the health of all Americans at risk"
