Poetry Picks from Local Poets
Laura Tohe
One of my favorite books is Pablo Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.
Neruda's poems take me into a world of beautiful language, a world full of sumptuousness imagery that
makes me look at the world in new ways and makes me grow as a poet.
Discover Neruda's work in our catalog.
Laura Tohe is Diné. She is Tsénahabiłnii, Sleepy Rock People clan, and born for the Tódich’inii, Bitter Water clan. She grew up at Crystal, New Mexico near the Chuska Mountains on the Diné homeland. A poet, writer, and librettist, Tohe's work has been published in such journals as Ploughshares, New Letters, cream city review, Red Ink, World Literature Today and many others. Her work has appeared in the U.S., Canada, South America and in Europe with French, Dutch and Italian translations. She has read her poetry internationally in the U.S., Europe, and South America. Laura holds a doctorate degree in creative writing, Indigenous American Literature, and American Literature. Laura is Professor with Exemplar Distinction in the English Department at Arizona State University and is an Arizona Speaks presenter for the Arizona Humanities that awarded her the 2006 Dan Schilling Public Scholar award. In 2015 Laura was honored as the Navajo Nation Poet Laureate for 2015-2017, a title given to her in celebration and recognition of her work as a poet and writer. Learn more: https://www.lauratohe.com/Rosemarie Dombrowski
The obvious choice for me is the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. It's not only the beginning of the democratic impulse
in American poetry, it's the most overt equating of the sexual and the spiritual in the American canon, not to mention the most radical celebration of the body (and sexuality) in all its forms.
Rosemarie Dombrowski is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix. She lives to preach the gospel of poetry in all its forms. Her current
projects include rinky dink press, Write On, Downtown: a journal of student and community writing, the Phoenix Poetry Series, First Friday Poetry on Roosevelt Row, the Phoenix Community Poetry Gardens, and New Phx Voices: Teen Poetry Workshop & Open Mic at Burton Barr Central Library. Learn more: www.rdpoet.com
Ashley Naftule
Wallace's poems are beautiful, evocative mysteries. You can read this book front-to-back a dozen times and there will still be lines in there that refuse to reveal their meaning to you. And the thing is, you won't care: Stevens' writing is so imaginative and unique that worrying about what it all means is beside the point. Like a duckbill platypus, it just is."
Ashley Naftule is a writer & performer based in Phoenix, AZ. He’s been published in The Outline, Noisey, Phoenix New Times, The Hard Times, Rinky Dink Press, Spiral Nature, Tucson Weekly, Runt Of The Web, Dark City Mystery Magazine, and special projects from Four Chambers Press. As a playwright and producer at Space55 theatre, he regularly organizes variety shows and theatrical productions in downtown Phoenix. Learn more: https://ashleynaftule.com/
