Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

A giant week this week in news on poetry. Obituaries and articles from Great Regulars, some we have not heard from in a while, continued to get posted onto the web, even as I was finishing things up. I kept going back, and adding, and then reconsidering the top eleven news stories.

We begin with links to possible improprieties, the first at the Paris Review, the second having to do with Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo lifting words from the poetry of Carl Sandburg, this latter one within a larger interview with poet Chilmalum Nwankwo. We then go to Tibet with Tenzin Tsundue and "Beyond Katrina" with Natasha Trethewey. This is how we begin our travels around the poetry globe, and there are so many remarkable stories being told, and poems being offered to web readers these past few days.

Congratulations go out to the IBPC winners for July, and very special thanks to Ruth Ellen Kocher, who is judging the poems this summer. Here are her winning poems:

1st Place: Dreams: mobile, written by Petra Klein, and workshopped at Salty Dreams

2nd Place: Pantone 1665 C., written by Ben Johnson, and workshopped at The Poets' Graves

3rd Place: Bone-Song, written by Laurie Byro, and workshopped at Desert Moon Review

Yours,
Rus

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