2020 National Poetry Series Winner Teresa K. Miller

Name: 2020 National Poetry Series Winner Teresa K. Miller
Start: 2021-11-17T12:00:00-05:00
End: 2021-11-17T13:00:00-05:00
Location: On Demand

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The National Poetry Series was established in 1978 to recognize and promote excellence in contemporary poetry by ensuring the publication of five books of poetry annually through participating publishers. In addition, the National Poetry Series has partnered with Miami Book Fair to award the Paz Prize in Poetry, which ensures bilingual publication for a book of poems written in Spanish. This conversation features Teresa K. Miller on Borderline Fortune, in conversation with the judge who selected her manuscript, Carol Muske-Dukes, Twin Cities. Borderline Fortune is a meditation on intangible family inheritance – of unresolved intergenerational conflicts and traumas in particular – set against the backdrop of our planetary inheritance as humans. As species go extinct and glaciers melt, Miller asks what we owe one another and what it means to echo one’s ancestors’ grief and fear. Drawing on her family history, from her great-grandfather’s experience as a schoolteacher on an island in the Bering Strait to her father’s untimely death, as well as her pursuit of regenerative horticulture, Miller seeks through these beautifully crafted poems to awaken from the intergenerational trance and bear witness to our current moment with clarity and attention. With a special introduction by Daniel Halpern, founder of HarperCollins imprint Ecco and the National Poetry Series.

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Muske-Dukes, Carol

Carol Muske-Dukes is a poet, critical essayist, and fiction author. Her poetry collection, Sparrow: Poems, a haunting elegy for her late husband, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her new collection, Twin Cities (Penguin Books), is a book of poems about how things double: by reflection, by reproduction, by severance. The poems embark from the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, divided by a legendary river, and move on to the parallel histories of a life lived and a life imagined – and the random intersection of the two. Lit by loss, these moving poems navigate between the poles of love and grief, curse and blessing, and abandonment and rescue.

Miller, Teresa K.

Teresa K. Miller is the author of sped and Forever No Lo, and the co-editor of Food First: Selected Writings from 40 Years of Movement Building (Food First Books). Her poems and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, AlterNet, Entropy, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. Borderline Fortune (Penguin Books) is her meditation on the intangible family inheritance of unresolved conflicts and trauma, set against the backdrop of our planetary inheritance as humans. As species go extinct and glaciers melt, Miller asks what we owe one another and what it means to echo one’s ancestors’ grief and fear. She draws on her family history – her great-grandfather’s experience as a schoolteacher on an island in the Bering Strait; her father’s untimely death; her pursuit of regenerative horticulture. Through these poems, she seeks to awaken from the intergenerational trance and witness our current moment.

Halpern, Daniel

Daniel Halpern is the author of eight collections of poetry, and has received numerous grants and awards (including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the 1993 PEN Publisher Citation). For twenty-five years he edited the literary magazine Antaeus. He is currently Editorial Director of The Ecco Press/HarperCollins.

2020 National Poetry Series Winner Teresa K. Miller