2021 National Poetry Series Winner Shelley Puhak

Name: 2021 National Poetry Series Winner Shelley Puhak
Start: 2022-11-15T12:00:00-05:00
End: 2022-11-15T13:00:00-05:00
Location: On Demand

Author:

Puhak, Shelley, McGrath, Campbell, Halpern, Daniel

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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 Shelley Puhak on Harbinger: Poems, speaking with poet Campbell McGrath, Nouns & Verbs: New and Selected Poems. Seen through the lens of motherhood, of working as a waitress, of watching election results come in, or of simply sitting in a waiting room, making art – and making an artist – is a process wherein historical events collide with lived experience, both deeply personal but also unfailingly political. When we make art, for what (and to whom) are we accountable? And what does art-making demand of us, especially as apocalypse looms? Puhak shows us the reality of the constantly evolving and unstable self, a portrait of the artist as fragmentary, impressionable, and always in flux. With a special introduction by Daniel Halpern, founder of HarperCollins imprint Ecco and the National Poetry Series.

In partnership with

Puhak, Shelley

Shelley Puhak is a poet and writer from Maryland. Her second book, Guinevere in Baltimore (Waywiser, 2013), was selected by Charles Simic for the Anthony Hecht Prize, and her first, Stalin in Aruba (Black Lawrence Press, 2010) was awarded the Towson Prize for Literature. Her poems have appeared in Cincinnati Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Shenandoah, and Verse Daily, and her prose has been published in The Atlantic, The Iowa Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Her nonfiction debut, The Dark Queens, was published by Bloomsbury in early 2022. In Harbinger: Poems (Ecco), a 2021 National Poetry Series selection, Puhak’s works reflect the many facets of the artistic self and the myriad influences and experiences that contribute to that identity. Seen through the lens of motherhood, working as a waitress, watching election results come in, or simply sitting in a waiting room, those events become deeply personal but also unfailingly political. Harbinger shows us the reality of the constantly evolving and unstable self, a portrait of the artist as fragmentary, impressionable, and always in flux.

McGrath, Campbell

Campbell McGrath is the author of 11 books of poetry, most recently Nouns & Verbs: New and Selected Poems and XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century, a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in scores of literary journals and anthologies, as well as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The New York Times. McGrath’s writing has been recognized with some of the most prestigious awards in American letters and by a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award.” He teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University.

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.

2021 National Poetry Series Winner Shelley Puhak