Friday Links
August 7, 2026
View from the Seawall, North Wildwood, NJ
The purpose of poetry is to tell us about life
The Poetry of Independence
Showdowns and shootouts
2026 National Book Festival
The Writing Life: Cultivating Creative Habits
The Windhover Writers' Festival
The purpose of poetry is to tell us about life
Steve Knepper writes on narrative first. This is the first entry in a series exploring narrative verse in all its glories:
Narrative poetry shouldn’t need justification. Its roots are as deep as literature itself. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a poem, as are the Iliad and Odyssey, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The great works of tragic and comic drama in both antiquity and the Renaissance, as well as Japanese Noh drama, are written in verse. For much of human history, storytelling was a poetic art. Rhapsode, bard, skald, griot, and balladeer all told stories via song, chant, refrain, rhyme, and meter.
The Poetry of Independence
James Matthew Wilson was commissioned to write a series of poems celebrating America’s 250th. You can read the poems and Wilson’s thoughts on the experience of writing them HERE. Kudos to the person who suggested asking a good poet to contribute to the celebration:
An occasional poem can sometimes be a vexing assignment for a poet. The language must be public, the substance well known and communal. It cannot afford obscurity, but it also cannot be merely commonplace, even as it must indeed celebrate a place we hold in common. The sequence moves from two poems of vignette and narrative to a verse essay of extended reflection, and on to its close, which I hope not only alludes to our National Song Book but constitutes an entry in its pages..
Showdowns and shootouts
A. E. Stallings reviews Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey (part of this is behind a paywall, but you can sign up for a free month to read the rest):
The first is a masterpiece from 1958, William Wyler’s The Big Country. My comparison might seem glib, but I have long argued that the Odyssey is the first western, involving as it does a man returning from a war to a ranch beset by rapacious cattlemen bent on marrying his grass widow, all the tensions ratcheting up to an epic showdown. In other words, the Odyssey has always been destined for Hollywood.
2026 National Book Festival
The National Book Festival is on August 22 in Washington, DC. More info at the link and if you cannot make it, there will be recordings. Some sessions will be live-streamed.
The Writing Life: Cultivating Creative Habits
Shemaiah Gonzalez is offering a Zoom class on Monday August 24 where participants “discuss reading, writing, schedules, goals, themes and community as we cultivate our own literary lives to set ourselves up for success.”
The Windhover Writers' Festival
The Windhover Festival is not until February, but the call is out now for proposals. The central theme of the festival this year is Narrative Beauty. You can read proposal guidelines HERE.
