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Editor's Note: If you were anywhere near Earth a little over a week ago, on Monday, January 6, then you know there was a football game that night—the stunning BCS National Championship game between the Florida State Seminoles and the Auburn Tigers. It was, by all measures, a game of poetic twists and turns on the field, but more stunning for the P&PC Office was the poetry taking place off the field in the televised commercial for Auburn, which featured—no, was completely anchored by— Jake Adam York's poem "There are Angels." (Watch it here or scroll to the video at the bottom of this post.) Like a stadium crowd silenced by a kickoff returned for a touchdown, we were speechless, hardly believing our eyes and ears; we knew Jake (pictured here) during his Auburn years and after, and, like everyone else in the poetry world, we were shocked by his sudden and untimely death in 2012. (N.B. Jake's newest book is due out in March.) Confused, thrilled, and emotiona...

P&PC is busy getting its parkas and long underwear out of storage in preparation for everyone's favorite-slash-least-favorite event of the year—the Modern Language Association's annual convention , being held at the end of this week (Thursday-Sunday) in balmy downtown Chicago where thermometers currently read a Windy-City-bracing negative nine degrees Fahrenheit.  Things stand to warm up a little bit, though, especially on Saturday, January 11, when P&PC will be part of a panel titled "Chicago's Poetry and the Making of Literary Modernism," scheduled for 5:15-6:30 pm in the O'Hare conference room of the downtown Chicago Marriott . Unlike many conference activities, which require an official badge and paid-up elbow patches for entry, "Chicago's Poetry and the Making of Literary Modernism" is being made free and open to the public . Liesl Olson of Chicago's Newberry Library will be moderating and commenting, and the panel's s...