Poetry Lover — Soto, Gary — Twenty years ago, when Silver Mendez was the youthful author of two published books of poetry, he bragged that he was the first Chicano to write in complete sentences. His career has been going steadily downhill ever since. But a letter from Spain may change his luck. Silver is invited to Madrid to participate in a conference on Chicano literature. Now all he needs is money -- for a plane ticket, a new passport, and a place to stay. And oh, yes -- he needs to be able to send e-mail to Spain. Silver, a poet without a job, a home, or even a typewriter to his name, has his work cut out for him. His old friend Al Sanchez, a body and fender man who used to play drums in a rock band, is tapped out and angry because Silver never repaid Al's last loan. But even in the face of these imposing obstacles, Silver is determined not to miss this chance at the life a poet should live. Gary Soto introduced us to Silver in Nickel and Dime, where the homeless poet crossed paths with an assortment of other hard-luck Oakland compadres. Here once again Soto's virtuoso ability to combine humour and pathos etches a warm-hearted portrait of the stumbling Silver. Even while we laugh at his misadventures, we cheer him on as he lurches toward a new life with an old love.
The Essential June Jordan, Jan Heller Levi, Christoph Keller, eds. - Copper Canyon Press
The Essential June Jordan honors the enduring legacy of a poet fiercely dedicated to building a better world. In this definitive volume, featuring an afterword by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jericho Brown, June Jordan’s generous body of poetry is distilled and curated to represent the very best of her works. Written over the span of several decades―from Some Changes in 1971 to Last Poems in 2001―Jordan’s poems are at once of their era and tragically current, with subject matter including racist police brutality, violence against women, and the opportunity for global solidarity amongst people who are marginalized or outside of the norm. In these poems of great immediacy and radical kindness, humor and embodied candor, readers will (re)discover a voice that has inspired generations of contemporary poets to write their truths. June Jordan is a powerful voice of the time-honored movement for justice, a poet for the ages.
Tradition and the Individual Talent
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
Fixer by Edgar Kunz | East Bay Booksellers
A New York Times Editors’ Choice book from the author of the award-winning Tap Out – “a gritty, insightful debut” (Washington Post) – Edgar Kunz’s second poetry collection propels the reader across the shifting terrain of late-capitalist America.
The best writing advice I’ve ever read comes from Robert Frost.
I write prose, not poetry, but the most helpful piece of advice I’ve ever read was written by a poet: Robert Frost, who was born 147 years ago today. In the second, expanded edition of his Co…
Writing With and Beyond AI: Fieldnotes from Computer-Mediated Poetry
Apr 10, 2026, 12:15 pm - Large language models can make writing mind-numbingly efficient — but the point of writing with AI should be to write what we couldn’t have written alone (without generating bland, derivative “slop”).
My Vocabulary Did This to Me by Jack Spicer | East Bay Booksellers
An essential collection of a highly original American poetWinner of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Award for Poetry (2009)Winner of the American Book Award (2009)In 1965, when the poet Jack Spicer died at the age of forty, he left behind a trunkful of papers and manuscripts and a few copies of the seven small books he had seen to press.
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
A week of poetry, music, dancing, workshops, exhibits, conversations, food and fellowship, rooted in tradition but focused on today’s rural West.
Melissa Lozada-Oliva - Like Totally Whatever
How Steely Dan Composes A Song
Sean Bonney - poisons, their antidotes - Output Tray
Before I started cataloging the items in my suitcase, I’d previously resolved this year to read more poetry- starting with the handful of poetry volumes and cha...
Sean Bonney - poisons, their antidotes - Output Tray
Before I started cataloging the items in my suitcase, I’d previously resolved this year to read more poetry- starting with the handful of poetry volumes and cha...
Actual Air in the Purple Mountains: An Interview With David Berman
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
NaPoWriMo
Well, we did it again, everybody! Another April — and another National/Global Poetry Writing Month — have come and gone.
Brennan Kenneth Brown / brennan.day · GitLab
Brennan's IndieWeb blog built with Eleventy. Essays, poetry, and musings on writing, technology, and the human experience. | https://brennan.day
Might I recommend this poem by Melissa Lozada-Oliva, which is a response to this sort of comment
Melissa Lozada-Oliva - Like Totally Whatever
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