Partly like the sun and partly like the air, the earth—just like a body if it had no bones. As if by veins it is held together so it does not crumble. Read more →

By Jay Parini

My old mentor Alastair Reid died only two years ago at eighty-eight. He was a Scottish poet and translator, and we met in 1970 in Scotland, where I lived for seven years. He was an astonishing fellow: wry, witty, learned, and lavishly gifted as a poet and critic. My sense of what a poem should “sound like” came from reading him carefully. There was a deep musicality in his work, an accessibility as well, that struck me then and has remained with me throughout my life. Read more →

Q&A with Helene Atwan Photo credit: Bob Kosturko What has been Beacon’s relationship with poetry? For the past decade or more, Beacon’s poetry program, such as it was, focused largely on two key poets we have published over many years,... Read more →