Kelly Writers House-affiliated poets publish poems in the Commentary pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Inquirer
December 2001
In December of 1999, Philadelphia Inquirer Commentary page editor John Timpane invited then-Writers House Director Kerry Sherin to solicit poems from Writers House poets for publication in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The poems were to be limited in length (20 lines) and based on recent Inquirer articles, using article headlines for their titles. The poems appeared on the Inquirer's Commentary page, one per day, during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. For the past five years this Writers House/Philadelphia Inquirer collaboration has continued; each late December/early January features a weeks'-worth of "Poets in the News."
From John Timpane, about the collaboration:
Once there was a time when your local newspaper carried a poem or two every day. Some pretty good poems first saw the light in the pages of a newspaper. After the Second World War, when universities were rearing up large creative writing programs and (it was erroneously thought) the academy was "claiming" poetry, newspapers began to publish less of it, until, by the late 1950s, the practice was pretty much dead. One of the saddest things in the world is to read the New York Times Index and watch the frequency of poetry publication drain away along with the grey 1950s.
Today, in my opinion, most newspaper people are afraid of poetry. They're afraid readers won't understand it, especially poetry they (these newspaper people) find "hard" or "experimental." It amounts to a fear of the verbal.
This, reader, is hogwash. Newspapers should seek and print many different kinds of writing. It should be held to high standards of originality and authenticity, to be sure, but editors should respect both their readers and the great tradition of American letters to which newspapers belong.
When I first got to be the Commentary Page Editor at The Inquirer, I immediately set about getting to know as many good writers as I could. Al Filreis, Tom Devaney, Kerry Sherin, and many other people at the Kelly Writers House quickly became valued friends and colleagues. Some exciting work goes on at Kelly Writers House, and it was only a matter of time before we decided we ought to put some of it on my page. And so we did. And so we do. The results have been wonderful, and while, sure, some editors and readers haven't gotten individual poems, lines, and words, many more have enjoyed the delight and challenge of good poetry in a great American newspaper. I thank everybody at Kelly Writers House for making this privilege possible.
John Timpane
Commentary Page Editor
Philadelphia Inquirer
To read the "Poets in the News" poems, click on the name of each individual poet, below.
December 2006
December 2005
- Samantha Barrow
- Cecilia Corrigan
- Sam Donsky
- Anna Mendoza
- Moira Moody
- Elizabeth Scanlon
- Frank Sherlock
December 2004
December 2003
December 2001
- Sharon Male
- Deborah Burnham
- Jennifer Snead
- Lauren Rile Smith
- Tom Devaney
- Patrick Kelly
- Kathy Lou Schultz
December 2000
- Deborah Burnham
- Allie D'Augustine
- Randall Couch
- Suzanna Urminska
- Kirsten Thorpe
- Matthew Hart
- Patrick Kelly
December 1999