March 29, 2024

Middle Tennessee Poetry News

We’re well into National Poetry Month, and besides the Big Poetry Giveaway happening on my blog (and many others), I have more poetry news to share, with a focus on middle Tennessee:

The first of two double page spreads on poetry in April's Inside Brentwood Magazine. That's me in the top left picture, reading Lisa Coffman's LESS OBVIOUS GODS.

First of all, my friend and fellow poet Sandy Coomer has the article “April: A Time for Poetry”  in Inside Brentwood Magazine. In addition to discussing the importance of poetry and National Poetry Month, Sandy also covers many middle Tennessee poets and poetry events, including – with photos – the poetry open mic group at Landmark Booksellers and the Nashville Poetry Meetup Group. I’m especially glad to see two of my former MTSU Writer’s Loft mentees, Walker Bass and Kelly Bills, pictured.

Next, I’m glad to have the article “A Trio of New Books for National Poetry Month” in The Murfreesboro Pulse. If you’ve read my Big Poetry Giveaway post, it won’t surprise you one bit that one of the books I briefly review is Lisa Coffman’s newest, Less Obvious Gods. I also review Irene Latham’s latest, The Sky Between Us, and the sure-to-become-a-classic, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee. Read a much more in-depth review of the anthology in the article, “New Anthology Spotlights Tennessee Poets,” from Chapter 16. I’m delighted to have a poem in this anthology from Texas Review Press.

MTSU poets Gaylord Brewer, Marcus Jackson and Matthew Brown are featured in April's Murfreesboro Magazine.

And that’s not all! There’s also a nice article by editor Laura Beth Payne in April’s Murfreesboro Magazine about the latest happenings of three poets affiliated with MTSU: Gaylord Brewer, Marcus Jackson, and Matthew Brown. I don’t think the article is online, but here’s an image from the MTSU Department of English blog.

Finally, I want to mention two more blogs related to Tennessee poetry:

The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee is one of the books mentioned in April's issue of The Murfreesboro Pulse.

    • The My Name is Tennessee blog hasn’t been updated in a few months, but I’m hoping its author will continue her mission of sharing and writing about poems by Tennessee authors. She’s already featured some of my favorite Tennessee poets, but as the above mentioned anthology establishes, there are many more poets to feature. (I was honored for her to share one of my poems in the post “Kory Wells: Mixing Past and Present” , although, to be clear, she’s not talking about verb tense, although I probably do that sometimes, too.)
  • Poet and professor of English Jeff Hardin, another fellow middle Tennessean, blogs about poetry and specific poems by writers from across the state and nation. Poets will find careful, detailed analysis, insight and ideas for their own poems here on Jeff’s blog. Several of his recent posts have focused on the first poems of various poet’s collections.

Are there other blogs by or about Tennessee poets that you read? Or other recent articles about middle Tennessee poets? Please share them in the comments!

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