Tina Cane (Poet Laureate, RI) on Capturing "Year of the Murder Hornet" in Verse

Born in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, and raised in the Village, Tina Cane serves as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island where she is the founder/director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI. Her poems and translations have appeared in numerous publications, including The Literary Review, Spinning Jenny, Tupelo Quarterly, Jubliat, and The Common. In her capacity as poet laureate, Cane has established her state's first youth poetry ambassador program in partnership with Rhode Island Center for the Book, and has brought the Poetry-in-Motion program from the New York City Transit System to Rhode Island's state-wide busses. Cane is the author of The Fifth Thought, Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, poems with art by Esther Solondz, Once More With Feeling, and Body of Work. In 2016, Tina received the Fellowship Merit Award in Poetry, from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. She was also a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets and is the creator/curator of the distance reading series, Poetry is Bread. Her debut novel-in-verse for young adults, Alma Presses Play (Penguin/Random House) was released in September 2021 and her new poetry collection, Year of the Murder Hornet, came out with Veliz Books in May 2022. Cane is also the editor of the forthcoming, Poetry is Bread: The Anthology, which will be published in early 2023 with Nirala Press. We interviewed Tina for the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast.