1993 in Poetry - Events

Events

• January 20 — Maya Angelou reads "On the Pulse of Morning" at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton
• T. S. Eliot Prize created.
• March 31–April 3 — Writing from the New Coast: First Festival of Poetry held at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Many influential younger poets attend the conference. The final, two-volume issue of o•blék magazine this year will contain writing presented at the conference.
• Bound by Honor, a film directed by Taylor Hackford, based on the life of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, who co-wrote the screenplay, is released.
• Poetic Justice, a film directed by John Singleton, features Maya Angelou's poetry, and she appears as Aunt June.
• Poesia sempre, is created by the National Library of Brazil to promote poetry both from that nation and from beyond its borders and provide a forum for debate on poetry
• A new Yiddish monthly journal, Di yidishe gas ("The Jewish Street"), edited by Aron Vergelis, appears in Moscow. It is the first since the Sovetish heymland ("Soviet Homeland") became defunct.
• December 8 — Start of the University of Buffalo POETICS listserv, informally and variously known as UBPOETICS or the POETICS list, one of the oldest and most widely known mailing lists devoted to the discussion of contemporary North American poetry and poetics. In the early days of the list, membership, list discussions and even the existence of the list itself were kept private, and members were required not to discuss the contents of list postings or the list itself with "outsiders." People who wished to join the list were asked to provide a short "personal statement" before being approved.
• American literary magazine o•blék (pronounced "oblique"), founded in 1987 by Peter Gizzi who co-edited it with Connell McGrath, stopped publishing.