A Poetry Daily Prose Feature:

"I count myself a yearner after significance, as Robert Penn Warren called himself. I've experienced that personal yearning for meaning—call it the divine, if you like—and I take that yearning to be evidence of the possibility of the existence of its object. Why should I yearn for something that isn't there?... Organized religion is another matter."
—David Bottoms, An Instrument of Investigation: An Interview with David Bottoms

In the News:

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2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists announced:
Jim Harrison, Dawn Lundy Martin, Linda Norton, Carl Phillips, Bruce Smith named poetry finalists. (Los Angeles Times)

TLS poem of the week:
Andrew McCulloch introduces Eavan Boland's "Amber." (The Times Literary Supplement)

American Life in Poetry:
Ted Kooser presents Anya Silver's "Leaving the Hospital." (American Life in Poetry)

The Guardian Poem of the Week:
Carol Rumens introduces the 15th century poem "The Blacksmiths." (The Guardian)

The Chronicle of Higher Education Monday poem:
Lisa Russ Spaar introduces William Thompson's "Stutterer" and "The Prayer Rope Knot." (Chronicle of Higher Education)

"Homer Inc:"
"Why are our contemporaries so keen on the Iliad's Iron Age reminiscence of Bronze Age combat?" asks Edward Luttwak. (London Review of Books)

The "hilarious, somber, urbane, moralistic, pious, lyrical, and dirty Jonson:"
John Timpane on Ian Donaldson's "magisterial" Ben Jonson: A Life. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
 • Reviewed by Brian Vickers. (The Times Literary Supplement)

"Leave it to Wisława Szymborska to write a poem celebrating tragedy's nonexistent sixth act."
An appreciation by Charles McNulty. (Los Angeles Times)

"A miraculous ability to make the past fresh, moving and urgent:"
Simon Armitage's The Death of King Arthur reviewed by Kate Kellaway. (The Guardian)

"Poetry that uses composure and weight to discover and clarify:"
David Biespiel introduces Phillis Levin's "May Day." (The Oregonian)

"A broad-ranging meditation on all things migratory:"
Ruth Padel's The Mara Crossing reviewed by Miriam Gamble. (The Guardian)

"as though this is what a human life is: / to be passed from hand to hand"
Moya Cannon's Hands reviewed by Adrian Frazier. (The Irish Times)

"daily, methodical, / Into the heart of matter."
Harry Clifton on Thomas Kinsella's Love Joy Peace and Fat Master. (The Irish Times)

"I haven't known what I was doing for years:"
Steven Brodsky talks with Stephen Dunn. (Podcast from the Entertainment & Culture Show and WCHE)

"The problem is that love poetry's record as an aphrodisiac is fairly mixed."
"Valentine's Day is a tricky occasion for poets," says David Orr. (NPR Books)

Still at a distance:
Gil Scott-Heron's The Last Holiday: A Memoir reviewed by Dan DeLuca. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

"Assiduously upending and scraping the waste-paper basket:"
Dennis O'Driscoll on The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett. (The Irish Times)

Recently Arrived Titles
These just in... Highlighted titles may be purchased from Poetry Daily / Amazon.com. A complete list of all books and journals recently received at Poetry Daily is also available.

• Fowling Piece, Heidy Steidlmayer (TriQuarterly Books)
• The Girls of Peculiar, Catherine Pierce (Saturnalia Books)
• Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom, Sung Po-jen, tr. Red Pine (Copper Canyon Press)
• My Love Is a Dead Arctic Explorer, Paige Ackerson-Kiely (Ahsahta Press)
• Enigma and Light, David Mutschlecner (Ahsahta Press)
• Obedience, Chris Vitiello (Ahsahta Press)
• Sancta, Andrew Grace (Ahsahta Press)
• My Scarlet Ways, Tanya Larkin (Saturnalia Books)
• To Embroider the Ground with Prayer, Teresa J. Scollon (Wayne State University Press)
• Fast Break to Line Break: Poets on the Art of Basketball, Todd Davis, ed. (Michigan State University Press)
• The Forbidden: Poems from Iran and its Exiles, Sholeh Wolpé, ed. (Michigan State University Press)
• The Exile's Papers, Part Three: The Dirt's Passion Is Flesh Sorrow, Wayne Clifford (Porcupine's Quill)
• In the Tourist Cave, Mark DeFoe (Finishing Line Press)
• A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, Stacey Lynn Brown and Oliver de la Paz, ed.s (University of Akron Press)
• Allegiance, Francine J. Harris (Wayne State University Press)
• Bird of Paradise, George Young (Parallel Press)
• Echoes of a River: Poems of New Orleans and Beyond, Gordon Walmsley (Salmon Poetry)
• Selected Poems, Jaan Kaplinski, tr. Jaan Kaplinski, Sam Hamill, Hildi Hawkins, Fiona Sampson (Bloodaxe Books)

Recent Anthologies, etc.

• The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women's Poetry, Peggy O'Brien, ed. (Wake Forest University Press)
• The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, Rita Dove, ed. (Penguin)
• The Best American Poetry 2011, David Lehman, Kevin Young, eds. (Scribner)
• Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry, David Orr (Harper)
• A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet, Eavan Boland (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.)
• The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry, Ilan Stavans, ed. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Attack of the Difficult Poems, Charles Bernstein (University of Chicago Press)
• Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry, Stephen Burt (Graywolf Press)
• Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, Dennis O'Driscoll (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Quote Poet Unquote: Contemporary Quotations on Poets and Poetry, ed. Dennis O'Driscoll (Copper Canyon Press)

Past Features:
Original articles, interviews, selections from special collections and journal issues, and more are available in the Archives.