Today's Headline: 2020 Poets Laureate Fellows Announced

View in browser   May 30, 2020 nah nah this one though is for all my niggas Nate Marshall starting with my Black niggas & assorted non-white niggas & even some white niggas! even the other Nate Marshall… actually especially him. what up to all the Nate Marshalls! there’s a hockey player & a comedian & 1 on acoustic guitar & 1 time a dude i knew hit me up relieved & shaken when his timeline told him Nate Marshall had been murdered but it was a different me somewhere on the North Side. definitely peace to that Nate Marshall & to his people who would have been relieved had i been the news article instead of their sweet, beautiful boy. love to y’all & to all the me’s not here to still be stupid. all the me’s not around to make mistakes & make amends. all the me’s who are fertilizer & not growing theyselves no more. family, this is my name & a myth that i don’t own alone. i never even meant to have this name this just a happy accident of birth, an unhappy coincidence of intersecting histories, an abbreviation that became law. look niggas, Nathaniel became Nate & is both. true story. did y’all niggas know i meet siblings every day who change they name to touch they truths? i know that. & i know there’s finna be at least 1 nigga who read this poem out loud when they know they ain’t got no good business with my name in they mouth. i know there’s finna be at least 1 nigga who email me to ask why i gotta use such an ugly word to call myself & my people & i’m just gonna respond & say which word? i been had a few names the world gave me & then won’t call me. i been had a name soft & pliant as a tonal language. i been had a name that was offensive or a love song depending on who held it in they mouth. from the journal BOAAT READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM Share Tweet Forward Poetry Daily Thanks You Many thanks indeed to all our readers and contributors, whose passion for poetry inspires us, and to all our generous donors, without whose support we could not continue. We look forward to sharing the very best contemporary poetry with you for the rest of the year. Stay safe and stay well.  2020 Poets Laureate Fellows Announced  "'We are honored and humbled in this moment of great need to fund poets who are talented artists and community organizers, who will most certainly help guide their communities forward,' said Jennifer Benka, President and Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets."   via THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES What Sparks Poetry: Jason Schneiderman on W. H. Auden's “Musée des Beaux Arts" "I remain amazed by how many rules the poem seems to break. The first stanza of the poem is a direct violation of that old dictum, 'show don’t tell.' Auden makes a lot of claims about how the Old Masters depict suffering, and he tells the reader how to interpret the paintings being discussed. The Old Masters might be showing, but Auden is quite definitely telling." READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com.  If you would like to unsubscribe please click here. © 2020 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030 Design by the Binding Agency