Today in our poetry news roundup we take a look a Juan Felipe Herrera’s new poetry collection, the zoom poetry session with Daljit Nagra and the Sonnets for Scams project.

New Poetry Collection Paints Portrait of America

Juan Felipe Herrera, the former US poet laureate, has just released his latest collection of poetry “Every Day We Get More Legal”. The collection is full of haunting poems that carry a sense of urgency.

In a recent interview with NPR (National Public Radio) the activist, educator and artist discussed his book and also read some of his poetry to the listening audience.

Talking about the theme behind the book, he confirmed that the inspiration came from the idea of being a migrant, someone who came from two separate places of more. His own family is originally from Mexico. He wanted to explore the subject of families that come to a new country and end up being split up. He also makes mention in the book of the border wall that is being built between Mexico and the United States.

In the collection, he has chosen to use the imagery of fireflies to represent the migrants; a theme that was inspired by the book “Fireflies” by Rabindranath Tagore which he remembers reading at school. He didn’t set out to portray the migrants as fireflies but the idea of people travelling at night and needing to find light to travel by.

Daljit Nagra Shares Creations for Derby Festival

Daljit Nagra, the award-winning poet will be reading some of his poems and also answering questions as part of the Derby Poetry Festival.

Daljit is the first-ever Poet in Residence for BBC Radio 4. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and also a winner of the Forward Poetry Prize. British born, Daljit’s work is a reflection of the experiences that many Indians who have been born in the United Kingdom have been subjected to. One of his poems Singh Song! Is currently on the curriculum to be studied for English Literature GCSE.

On National Poetry Day which falls tomorrow, he will be marking the occasion with a free zoom performance in the evening starting at 6.30 pm and ending at 8 pm. Using the chat facility that is available on Zoom, Daljit will be answering questions that will be put to him by the host who is from Writing East Midlands and Big White Shed Publishing.

The event is available to book online and zoom invite will be sent out to allow people to join the event.

Santander Scam Sonnets

The poet Pam Ayres and Suli Breaks, a performance poet, have joined forces with Santander in a collaboration that it is hoped will highlight the dangers involved with investment scams. The move has been made just ahead of National Poetry Day.

Santander challenged both poets to make rhymes about financial crimes for their “Scam Sonnets” in order to help the public.

The poems used lines from telephone calls, scam emails and online adverts that have previously been used to scam victims.