The new double issue of Poetry International, edited by Ilya Kaminsky, is out, and it features works by many Neustadt Prize-affiliated authors including Derek Walcott, Adam Zagajewski, Chris Abani, Li-Young Lee, Valzhyna Mort, and Kwame Dawes. Many Neustadt-affiliated authors—Mia Couto, Orhan Pamuk, and Valeria Luiselli—made the International Dublin Literary Award shortlist as well!
Laureates
“At the opinion’s close, Judge Davis turned to poetry to capture Gavin’s bravery.” Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Famous” was recently recited in a concurring judicial opinion for Gavin Grimm’s case regarding the right to use the boys’ restroom.
For National Poetry Month, Naomi Shihab Nye also participated in My San Antonio’s poetic conversation series with a poem titled “A Palestinian Might Say.”
New biographies about poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell have been recently released, and the Atlantic looks at how they became each other’s tragic muses. The Harvard Crimson also reviews Megan Marshall’s biography on Elizabeth Bishop.
In this new interview from Hyperallergic with Neustadt Prize laureate Adam Zagajewski, he discusses his new book, passing on his family’s stories, and more.
In this essay, TribTalk considers what Mexican diplomat and Nobel/Neustadt Prize winner Octavio Paz can tell us about US-Mexico relationships today.
Jurors
Could live theater reinvent itself with virtual reality? Director (and recent Neustadt Prize juror) Jordan Tannahill is debuting a VR experience at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Via the Guardian, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov shares how he met the great Russian dissident poet (and 1978 Neustadt juror) Joseph Brodsky.
“Why did you come to the United States?” The Intercept takes a look at Valeria Luiselli’s timely new book that repeatedly returns to this question and tells the story of child migrants.
Finalists
Neustadt Prize finalist and “language warrior” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o joins in a new interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books on the occasion of receiving the LARB/UCR Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award.
In this column for the Manila Standard, Jenny Ortuoste argues why everyone should know who Lynda Barry is.
