Jay Bernard's teenage poetry was terrible, something the award-winning poet is happy to admit. The 31-year-old south Londoner began writing at school, printing out poems, stapling them together, and charging classmates £2 for a copy. More than a decade later, Jay, who self-describes as non-binary, has won the 2018 Ted Hughes Award for Surge: Side…Read more The rock stars of poetry explain why the art is in demand (via BBC)

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has donated the funding for two grants to the Academy of American Poets, totaling $2.2 million. The funds, the AAP said, will be used to "enable the work of several poets serving in civic Poets Laureate positions," as well as to support more than 20 poetry organizations" who comprise the Poetry…Read more AAP Gets $2.2 Million In the Name of Poetry (via Publishers Weekly)

Full Title: "New Year, New Verse: 4 Poetry Collections That Change the World (via Vulture)" Poetry ought to be the preeminent form of this age — hell, every age. In a smattering of words, a poem can eulogize, satirize, criticize, proselytize. The greatest verse clues us into what Jane Hirshfield calls “poetry’s knowing,” its function of “clarification…Read more 4 Poetry Collections That Change the World (via Vulture)