News

Annie's poem "Lammas Chant" was featured on the site  POETRY X HUNGER. Founded by Hiram Larew, Poetry X Hunger is an informal initiative focused on intentionally inspiring poetry that addresses the cause of preventing and eliminating hunger. The overall approach is to augment the traditionally cited, tragic hunger statistics with heartfelt, powerful poetry as an innovative way of reaching the public and public policy decision makers. Visit the site here

Earth Days: Poems, Chants, and Spells in Five Directions, has been released by India-based publisher Nirala Publications.  A comprehensive gathering of poems from across Annie Finch's career, including previously uncollected poems, the book is arranged into the five elements of Fire, Air, Earth, Water, and Matrix.   Finch will launch Earth Days, her first collection of lyric poems to be published outside the US,  with a reading tour in India from September through November, including workshops, readings, and performances in New Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai.

The Academy of American Poets shared Annie's poem "Moon for Our Daughters" to celebrate International Women's Day, in a group of poems including works by June Jordan, Marilyn Chin, Lucille Clifton, and Maya Angelou. The email's header was the opening of the poem: "Moon that is linking our daughters' Choices, and still more beginnings . . ."

Annie spoke about poetry, meter, magic, and witchcraft on her Samhain birthday with Kate Belew and Kristin Lisenby for the Magick and Alchemy Podcast from Tamed Wild. The interview ran as a special Samhain bonus episode.

"Fresh Patterns," composer Lori Laitman's setting of Emily Dickinson's poem "It's All I Have to Bring Today" interwoven with Annie's poem "Letter for Emily Dickinson," is included in Laitman's new album The Ocean of Eternity: The Songs of Lori Laitman. The rave review of the album in The Journal of Singing singled out the piece, calling it "a ravishing performance of a stunning work."

Annie spent a month as Poet-in-Residence at West Chester University, sponsored by the West Chester University Poetry Center and the College of Arts and Humanities. While in residence, she gave several poetry readings and recorded a series of seven lectures on meter, scansion,  and prosody which the Poetry Center plans to make available to other universities.

Annie delivered the keynote lecture on poetics at the Poetry by the Sea Conference in Madison, Connecticut. Her talk, "Meter Matters: Redefining Poetry," explored the possibility of updating her current definition of poetry to strengthen the boundaries of the genre.

Annie was interviewed about her life and work for "The Poet and the Poem," sponsored by the library of Congress in Washington, DC and hosted by Grace Cavalieri.

Annie's rhythmical essay "Riding Meter's Magic Language Home" was featured on the panel "Celestial Cycles and Earthly Rhythms" at "Hearing the Invisible: Lessons From Sentient Beings and Inter-Relational Ecosystems," the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology.

Annie's essay "The Body of the Poetry Manuscript: Patterning Your Collection with Structural Repetition, from the forthcoming book Marbles on the Floor: How to Assemble a Book of Poems (U. of Akron Press), appeared in AWP Writers Chronicle: "Prose can also use gorgeous, lyrical, repetitive, incantatory language patterning. But while prose can be decorated by pattern, only poems are structured by pattern."

Annie spoke about the deep value of poetry on a two-part panel sponsored by the Maternal Gift Economy Movement on the topic, "The Misuse and Abuse of the Gifts of Language." The other panelists were Miigam'agan, Wabanake elder; Susan Petrilli, semiotician; and Vandana Shiva, author and activist. The panel was convened by Genevieve Vaughan, feminist economist and philosopher, and moderated by Letecia Layson.

Hollis Taylor of Rainbow Soul Vodcast interviewed Annie about the power of magic, meter, and poetry in the spiritual lives of gender-nonconforming and nonbinary folks, in traditional cultures and contemporary life.

Poetry Witch Community, founded by Annie and open to all women and gender-nonconforming folks, is  open as a haven for poets, witches, poetry-lovers, and everyone in between to connect and share about meter, magic, feminism, witchcraft, and matriculture.

Annie traveled to Jaipur, India to perform her poetry in the world's largest literary gathering, the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Wicked Baths Bath & Meditation Products created a special line of Five Directions Bath Bombs featuring rituals based on Annie's "Invocations to the Five Directions" from her forthcoming poetry collection Coven.

To mark the launch of her new book The Poetry Witch Little Book of Spells, Annie offered a Halloween reading with poet Kiki Petrosino in the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series at Washington D.C.'s Folger Shakespeare Library.

Annie's forthcoming edited anthology Choice Words: Writers on Abortion was singled out by Publishers Weekly for its Kickstarter campaign to fund permissions, which launched just after the Alabama law making abortion illegal. The book will be published in 2020 by Haymarket Books, helping mark the centennial of women's suffrage in the U.S..

The Sunday New York Times featured Annie's poem "Winter Solstice Chant," and her thoughts on the winter solstice, in pilot and essayist Mark Vanhoenacker's  meditative essay on the winter solstice season .

Two poems by Annie appear in the new Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry.  Rita Dove, editor of the anthology, chose "Another Reluctance" and "Insect"from Eve  (1997) for inclusion.

Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters is now out in the Everymans Library series from Random House, edited by Annie with poet Alexandra Oliver.  A twenty-year project of Annie’s, in the words of the publisher, “this comprehensive and joyous celebration of metered verse brings together some of the best rhythmic lines in literature.” More about Measure for Measure

“Casting Spells,” a full-length interview with Annie about poetry, earth-centered spirituality, and her new book, Spells, was featured in American Poetry Review.  The interview, conducted by writer Alexandria Giardino, used the groundbreaking technique of incorporating questions from numerous other poets and editors including Kazim Ali, Forrest Gander, Brenda Hillman, Maxine Kumin, Ethelbert Miller, Alicia Ostriker, Patricia Smith, and many more.  The interview may be ordered from American Poetry Review.

Dale Trumbore’s choral setting of Annie’s poem “A Valentine for Hands” from Calendars won the Yale Glee Club’s Emerging Composer Award.  The piece premiered at Woolsey Hall in New Haven, conducted by Jeffrey Douma.

Feminist theorist Charlene Spretnak devoted a special episode of her radio program “All Together Now” to a live performance of Ani's epic libretto AMONG THE GODDESSES. The production was performed by four actors with music recorded at the Temple of Isis in Egypt by composer Lorah Yaccorino. Following the performance, Annie was interviewed by director Cait Johnson about the choreopoem, her career, and abortion, which is a central theme of the book. The show is available for streaming and for download at the Progressive Radio Network.

On the day after the presidential election, BrainPickings  chose to tweet a link to Annie's poem "Moon for Our Daughters"  with the accompanying comment: "take this breath of sanity and hope."

Annie's poem "Moon for Our Daughters" was shared by the Academy of American Poets as a Poem-a-Day to its subscribers on the day after Election Day.  The poem may be found on the Academy's website with a recording of Annie reading the poem.

Garrison Keillor has chosen Villanelles, edited by Annie and Marie-Elizabeth Mali, as one of 7 books that he recommends for holiday gifts.

MacTaggart Jewelry features Annie modelling jewelry designed by poet-jeweler Paige MacTaggart, accompanied by several poems from Annie's book Calendars. More about Calendars

Annie’s entry on “formalism” appears in the new edition of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.

Annie has been appointed as the first Artist in Residence at the online divinity school Cherry Hill Seminary. During the one-year appointment, she will be posting original poems at the school’s website as well as working with students and faculty on collaborative projects.

Annie was invited to be a featured guest blogger for the Poetry Foundation blog, “Harriet.” Her 65 posts on meter, scansion, poetry in the Congo, the UK, and Iran, seasonal poetry, occasional poetry, erotic poetry, and many other aspects of poetry may be found here.

As part of the ceremonies marking Sylvia Plath’s induction into the Poets Corner of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Annie presented a talk at the Cathedral on Plath's use of language entitled “Plath’s Rough Magic.”Annie's talk is cited in the New Yorker Magazine’s coverage of the event.

Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams was awarded the Sarasvati Award for the best book of poetry concerning women and mythology by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. The award was conveyed at the ASWM biennial national conference in San Francisco.

Annie’s early collection of poems Eve has been selected for inclusion in Carnegie Mellon University Press’s “Classic Contemporaries” poetry series. “Classic Contemporaries” has gained widespread praise for reissuing significant out-of-print books by important American poets including Richard Hugo, Carolyn Kizer, James Tate, and Ellen Bryant Voigt.

"Wolf Song," Annie's multmedia collaborative verse play about the place of the Wolf in the physical and psychic landscape, premiered at Mayo Street Arts in Portland, Maine. Incorporating dance, masks, music, puppets, and verse theater, the play was directed by Assunta Kent with an original score by Cristina Alden-Kinne.

The Poetry Foundation interviewed Annie about her article “The Poetry of Winter” for a new podcast by called “Poetry Gone Cold.” “The Poetry of Winter,” as well as its companion pieces on autumn and spring, may be found at the Poetry Foundation website.

Annie has been named the winner of the Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award  ”for scholars who have made a lasting contribution to the art and science of versification.”  Previous  winners of this lifetime achievement award include Marina Tarlinskaja, John Hollander, and Paul Fussell.

Annie’s birthday on October 31 was noted by Garrison Keillor during his daily Public Radio broadcast, “The Writer’s Almanac.” Keillor also noted the birthdays of Martin Luther and John Keats.