Birmingham Student Wins National Poetry Award
Students at the Alabama School of Fine Arts return to class Monday, and senior Daniel Blokh can honestly say he’s had an eventful summer. Blokh was recently named a National Student Poet, one of only five selected from across the U.S. It’s awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists and Writers and is among the nation’s highest honors for young poets. For the next year, Blokh will serve as a poetry ambassador through workshops, service projects and public readings. WBHM’s Andrew Yeager spoke with Blokh.
Interview Highlights
On hearing he won the award:
“I was at a writing camp and I got a call in the middle of class. I thought it was just some kind of spam call and I picked up and they were like we have some wonderful news. And I was like can I call you back in two hours? … It’s a big responsibility and a big award and I don’t know how much I feel I deserve it, but I’m happy to have gotten it.”
How being the son of immigrants affects his work:
“I think it’s a really, really complex experience because, on one hand, they’re Russian, Jewish immigrants and so they’re really happy to have come to America both because [of] financial opportunities and also because Russia was very anti-Semitic. But also they miss home. And also they’re always going to be, in a way, strangers here. And that’s an experience that I’m constantly reminded of and I’ve written it feels like a billion poems about and I could write a billion more about.”
Advocating for poetry:
“I think it’s something that a lot of people don’t think they’ll be interested in and then they’re introduced to it and they find they really like it … [The award] to me is an opportunity to show more people that don’t think they’ll be interested in poetry that really it has the power to connect and it’s not this dry, academic thing.”
Supreme Court allows Trump to resume mass federal layoffs for now
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was appointed to the court by President Biden, dissented.
Graphics: Where the Texas floods happened and how high the waters rose
One Guadalupe River gauge near Kerrville and Camp Mystic recorded a rise of more than 25 feet in two hours.
Haiti’s iconic Hotel Oloffson, long a cultural beacon, destroyed by gang violence
The Hotel Oloffson in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, long a haven for artists and writers, poets and presidents, a symbol of Haiti's troubled politics and its storied past, has been destroyed by gangs.
New books this week focus on Caitlin Clark, King Tut, and how ‘Democrats Lost America’
Plus: a new novel from Gary Shteyngart, a true story of a shipwreck, and a memoir from a wrongly incarcerated inmate who was exonerated after 28 years behind bars.
Shoes off at the airport? TSA appears to be giving the pesky rule the boot
For nearly twenty years, most air travelers in the U.S. have been required to remove their shoes when going through security. That requirement seems to be ending.
Texas flood recovery efforts face tough conditions as local officials face hard questions
Emergency responders kept hope alive as they combed through fallen trees and other debris that littered the hard-hit central Texas communities on the fifth day after devastating floods killed more than 100.
