Poetry In The News

Jeffery Brown is a Journalist and PBS Chief Correspondent for Arts, Culture and Society. He co-anchors the nightly news program on PBS and also hosts “Art Beat”, the News Hour’s online arts and culture segment.

As a reporter, Brown speaks of the necessity of sticking to the facts and of not being able to express the emotions that sometimes arise with the telling of a particular news story.  He has now expressed some of these emotions in his recently published book of poetry aptly called “The News:Poems”.

The New Poet Laureate is the first Latino named to that position.  

Jose Felipe Herrera

Juan Felipe Herrera is the son of Mexican immigrants.  He was born in California to migrant farm worker parents. He traveled up and down California with his family, but with the help of a program for disadvantaged students was able to attend UCLA. He went on to earn a masters degree in Sociology from Stanford, but then turned to the realization of his passion for writing by attending the Iowa Writers Workshop for a MFA in poetry.

Write he did…poems, plays, children’s books…both in English and Spanish, sometimes combining both in one work.

Connecting with people is important to Herrera. “I used to stand on the corner in San Diego with poems sticking out of my hip pocket, asking people if there was a place where I could read poems.” It promises to be a lively year ahead for Poetry with our new Poet Laureate at the helm. Bienvenido Juan Felipe Herrera!

Poetry and the Moon

 

Moon over Lower Kimball Lake by Kathleen Tyler Conklin

 

The moon fascinates.  The moon is mysterious.  The moon is rising and as it ascends the horizon tonight, it will look gigantic.  This is an illusion caused by the random coming together when the moon is at its fullest and closest to the earth. It occurs about once in every fourteen full moons acceding to Wikipedia.

 

It happens this year on Sunday, June 23rd at about 7 am, but you don't have to rise bleary-eyed to see it.  It will be plenty plump, Saturday and Sunday nights around 8pm and 9pm, respectively.

 

Many poets have written about the moon.  Shakespeare uses the moon theme often in his writings, most notably in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Other moon obsessed poets are Wordsworth and Dickinson.

 

You just can't get away from it. The moon is magic. Tonight and tomorrow night it will be super magical. Go take a look. Then, write a poem.  Here's mine.

 

Moon Joy

 

I saw the moon

the other night,

glowing with

the strangest light.

 

It hung suspended low

behind twisted strands,

orange-swaying yo-yo

held by unseen hands.

 

I inhaled its milky vapor

dazzled by this heavenly toy,

reached to touch its misty taper

caught rapturously in moon-joy.