MFA Writing Colloquium: The Craft of Poetry: Nicole Sealey: The "Perfect" Poem

There are many good poems. There are, however, very few perfect poems. While we understand perfection is subjective, why is Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s Song a perfect poem among poets? In this craft talk, Nicole Sealey examines Song, its leaps, sounds, images, digressions, syntax, and embellishments. Understanding the forces behind this beloved poem can give us strategies for writing our very own perfect poem.

Nicole Sealey was born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Apopka, Florida. She is the author of Ordinary Beast, finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Open Book Award, and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. An excerpt from her forthcoming collection, The Ferguson Report: An Erasure, was awarded the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. Her honors include a 2023-2024 Cullman Center Fellowship from the New York Public Library, a Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy in Rome, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from The American Poetry Review, and fellowships from CantoMundo, Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies including The New Yorker, Poetry London, and The Best American Poetry (2018 and 2021). She was the Executive Director at Cave Canem Foundation from 2017-2019. She is a visiting professor at Boston University and teaches in the MFA Writers Workshop in Paris program at New York University.

This event is colloquium credit eligible.