Creative Support: June 2025
New books, events, workshops, and publishing advice for poets.
…
When the ten-speed, lightweight
bicycle broke down off the highway
lined thick with orange trees, I noticed
a giant raven’s head protruding from
the waxy leaves. The bird was stuck
somehow, mangled in the branches,
crying out. Wide-eyed, I held the bird’s
face close to mine. Beak to nose …
–from “Dream of the Raven,” Ada Limón
Hello and happy June, poets!
It’s retreat and conference season, and I’m delighted to be teaching at Lighthouse Writers Workshop LitFest this week and next. In July, I’ll be offering a remote seminar through the Taos Writers Conference. See below for details.
Where are you headed this summer?
Wherever you find your poet-self, I hope you find inspiration in these new books, events, workshops, publishing opportunities, and advice for practicing poets.
New Books
Cartography, by Cindy Huyser. “In Huyser’s debut poetry collection, Cartography, the poet brilliantly describes a landscape of both ecstasy and grief; hers is a map-making grounded in the body that tracks the metamorphosis of its speaker over time and under pressure.”
Clay, by Martha Ronk. “Ronk’s process-oriented language … addresses how we read texture and color, the ways history and landscapes appear in glazes, Mimbres bowls that covered the faces of the dead, and Giorgio Morandi’s still life paintings of ceramic forms.”
The Golden Book of Words, by Bernadette Mayer. “This landmark early book (its original printing by Angel Hair Books was 750 copies, and they are now extremely rare) by the late great Bernadette Mayer is finally available again…. Many fans especially relish her restless, powerful, sexy, and erudite early work.”
We Love All We Voices (Conjunctions, Issue 84). “Contributors to this language-celebrating issue, We Love All We Voices, include Arthur Sze, Aimee Bender, Edie Meidav, Alyssa Pelish, Rick Moody, among others, along with some of the Caribbean’s finest vernacular practitioners such as Marlon James, Tiphanie Yanique, and Marcia Douglas.”
Workshops, Events & More
June 9 Monday, 4-6pm MT — The Art of Iteration: How to Revise Your Poetry Manuscript (Lighthouse Writers Workshop LitFest - in person). This seminar explores the balance between productive revision and perfectionism, drawing insights from poets like Ocean Vuong and Victoria Chang. We’ll challenge the myth of linear progression, embrace curiosity, and help you recognize when your work feels whole enough to share with the world. Register.
June 10 —LitFest Visiting Author Reading, poet Eduardo Corral and others. In person and virtual options.
June 12 — LitFest Visiting Author Reading, poets Eileen Myles and Matthew Zapruder and others. In person and virtual options.
June 25 — Community of Writers Benefit Poetry Reading (in person and online), featuring Anthony Cody, Forrest Gander, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Jane Miller, Gregory Pardlo, and Evie Shockley. Register.
July 25-27 — The Annual Taos Writers Conference, in Taos, New Mexico and online. Join me and poets Nick Flynn, Veronica Golos, Aaron Abeyta, and others—plus fiction, memoir, and cross-genre writers—for discussions of craft, manuscript development, and more. Explore the conference.
Upcoming Deadlines
June 15 — 42 Miles Press Poetry Award
June 16 — Omnidawn Chapbook Prize
June 30 — Black Lawrence Press Open Reading Period
June 30 — Four Way Press Open Reading Period
Aug 15 — Grayson Books Poetry Book Prize
Aug 31 — Nine Syllables Chapbook Prize
Advice
“If every word was once a poem, the writings in this issue constitute a chorus that arises from the very depths of the poetic impulse, the poetic imperative. And if language is an order of spoken and written signifiers with the power to voice the everyday—I walk up the hill—as well as the ineffable—the hill rises to meet me—it is surely the preeminent faculty we possess, and one of our greatest inheritances. Aside, that is, from life itself, whose meaning we try to decipher using those same signifiers, words, codes, phrases, utterances spiritual and scientific and artistic…”
-Bradford Morrow, introduction to We Love All We Voices
Yours in poetry,
Radha
This is great and so helpful. Wish I could join y’all in Taos