Tag Archives: Patricia Smith

Full Circle: How One Poetry Reading Changed Everything

By Randall Horton

A bedraggled man sits on the steps of the Bleeker Street Station in Manhattan – one shoe on, one shoe off. He talks to himself so fast the words in his mind cannot possibly keep up with … Continue reading

Clipped Wings and Fearful Trills: Maya Angelou, the ’80s and the Obfuscation of African-American Poetry

By Victor D. Infante

When Maya Angelou died Wednesday, I told a story to my co-workers that I don’t think I’ve ever told before: That in my early teens, I read my way through the Laguna Beach Public Library’s poetry … Continue reading

One Just Man: Saying Goodbye to Seamus Heaney, and Resuming the Third Volume of Radius

By Victor D. Infante

When I was a teenager living in England, I became obsessed with Ireland, the land of my mother’s ancestors … a place that seemed so close and yet, for a poor college student, as out of … Continue reading

Your Invitation to the Wake: For Alexandra Petri, After Her Article, ‘Is Poetry Dead?’

By Tatyana Brown

The Tuesday afternoon after Obama was inaugurated for his second term (the same day The Washington Post published your thoughts on Richard Blanco and the state of certain fields of contemporary literature), I taught a poetry … Continue reading

From the “Next … Magazine” Files

Compiled by G. Murray Thomas

Next … Magazine covered the Southern California poetry scene on monthly basis from 1994 through 1998. In the process, it provided a ground-level view of a transitional period in poetry, in SoCal and nationally. “From … Continue reading