I met Paul (Pinny) Bulman through an informal network of poets who have won the BRIO (the Bronx Recognizes Its Own) award and to whom I belong. This organization is sponsored by the Bronx Council of Arts. BRIO winners are respectively granted fellowships, community projects and monetary awards for chosen manuscripts and other forms. Bulman received the 2014 BRIO for his collection of poems entitled old shul. Continue reading “A New Sacred Space of Words”: old shul poems and essay by Paul (Pinny) Bulman→
Philip Levine wrote unflinchingly and with nuanced craft about American working class life. Levine died on Saturday, February 14th, at the age of 87. Hear him talk about and recite his poem, “They Feed the Lion” at the National Endowment for the Arts website.
Read more on this elder and former Poet Laureate of American poetry, and his influence on poetry readers in this discussion in The New York Times. Levine’s work is known especially to our nation’s working class and immigrant writers who engage questions of labor, relationships and social justice.
Poet Mark Levine’s (no relation) recalls studying writing with Philip Levine as a college student in the essay, “How Difficult it is to Live.”
Poetry Foundation has an illuminating overview of Levine’s work, themes and affinities.
A conversation about workers, communities and social justice
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