SMU Project Poetica

As a proud initiative of the SMU Department of English, we are excited to share that Project Poëtica’s social presence will now live solely on the SMU English channels. As part of this shift, the current Project Poëtica account will no longer be active.

We had a wonderful time hosting Pulitzer Prize winner and former US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith, for a poetry reading at SMU’s Bridwell Library last week!

Please join us on Tuesday, November 11th in Bridwell Library for one of our most anticipated events of the year: Tracy K. Smith and Merve Emre in a creative conversation. The event is free and open to the public.

Congratulations to Katie Condon, Project Poëtica advisory board member and an assistant professor of creative writing at SMU, whose wonderful poem, “The Holy Sacrament of Repression” appears in the current issue of Poetry!

We are still reminiscing about such a wonderful book launch for Spotted Ponies: The Collected Zines. Many thanks to Chen Chen, Leila Chatti, Mag Gabbert, and Carly Joy Miller for sharing their sparkling work! (Tarfia Faizullah was there in spirit.)

Save the date! The SMU Symposium on Poetic Form is back in February and you won’t want to miss it. We look forward to a gathering of poets and scholars from around the world to discuss aspects of poetics such as rhyme, poetry and big data, sonnets, and newly invented forms.

Through our partnership with Bridwell Press, author Luisa Muradyan has released her book of poems, I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated.

Extending a very warm welcome to students beginning their Fall semester at SMU. We can’t wait to learn with you this season.

Project Poëtica is partnering with the academic journal English Literary History and the literary magazine The Hopkins Review on an initiative to foster deep engagement between literary scholars and literary fiction writers.

We’re less than a month away from the Inner Moonlight poetry event at The Wild Detectives. Don’t miss it!

We’re only a few short weeks away from the launch of our third publication with Bridwell Press, Spotted Ponies: The Collected Zines! This poetry collection was created by Mag Gabbert, Chen Chen, Tarfia Faizullah, Leila Chatti, and Carly Joy Miller.

We're thrilled to celebrate poet Rebecca Gayle Howell and her feature on Strange Hymnal. Howell’s next book, Erase Genesis, will be released in Fall 2025 by Project Poëtica/Bridwell Press. Explore this feature and let the words stay with you a while.

Did you hear the big news? Project Poëtica has partnered with publishing house Deep Vellum to bring you 10 new poetry books each year! Deep Vellum is a nonprofit publishing house and literary arts organization with the mission to bring the world into conversation through lit.

Check out this wonderful interview with I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated author Luisa Muradyan for Rob Mclennan’s Blog! If it’s not already, add this book of poems to the top of your reading list this Fall. You can read the full interview at robmclennan.blogspot.com.

You could be reading, writing, and experiencing poetry at Southern Methodist University among likeminded peers. What’s stopping you?

Project Poëtica is an SMU initiative that brings poetry into public spaces, everyday moments, and the heart of Dallas and beyond. Discover how this project is reshaping how we see, feel, and engage with verse in the world around us.

Project Poëtica would like to offer our congratulations to Mag Gabbert on her selection as one of the American Academy 2025 Poet Laureate Fellows! Keep an eye out for Spotted Ponies, as well as Gabbert’s “Sidewalk Poetry Project" in Dallas, TX.

These two early-Classical terracotta vases are part of the Kimbell museum’s permanent collection. Do these works of art–historical and contemporary, literary and visual–make you feel like “Nothing is more permanent than the temporary,” as Stallings writes?

In her introduction to Spotted Ponies, Project Poëtica’s own Mag Gabbert explains how this project allowed each of the five collaborators “a space… to grow and experiment as poets.” Can you tell we’re excited for the release of this delightful collection? #smuprojectpoetica

Another month championing the written & visual arts across Dallas 🖼️This month’s Art x Poetry installment is a newly acquired Chardin on view at the @kimbellartmuseum with poetry pairings from two incredible poets who are both Project Poëtica x Bridwell Press authors!