Poetry is vital to language and living. Since 1973, Copper Canyon Press has been publishing extraordinary poetry from around the world to engage the imaginations and intellects of readers. This 50th anniversary event celebrates the Press—and the many poets who have called it home—by way of a unique, new anthology: Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems that Matter Most. In tandem with its publication, this reading featured award-winning poets, Jericho Brown, Mark Bibbins, and Cate Marvin, who read and discussed what they consider to be the best poems they’ve ever written. Offering an intimate portrait into the working mind of writers, this program asked how writers manage the critic within, who or what they write for, and how we might rethink what literature gets remembered most.
Personal Best editors Erin Belieu and Carl Phillips hosted the poets in their reading and conversation. Director of the New School Creative Writing Program, John Reed, will welcome guests, and Executive Editor at Copper Canyon Press, Michael Wiegers, will introduce the program with a survey of this fifty years of extraordinary poetry making.