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Poetry News For December 6, 2008

Poetry News:

— How has Russian poetry turned out? What have these post-Soviet Union texts — reshaping a linguistically and socially altered language — turned out? —

— It is the ultimate expression of passion and grace, so long as you are fleet of foot. Send us your terpsichorean poems —

— Health Woes Have the Bat Poet Down, but He’s Not Forgotten —

— Though she is not the title character, Anne Sexton, the less-idolized writer, is the star of the show. —

— Aggregated 2008 Year-End Online Book Lists —

— Over-sized and heftier than typical single-volume poetry releases, The Alps uses its space well. There is a highly visual aspect to this book — not just because of the visual poems that are included, but also in its incredible use of white space throughout —

“It’s the font that changed the way we look at the world. Now it’s the film that’s changing the way we look at fonts.
ITVS Community Cinema, a free documentary screening series sponsored by Nashville Public Television and Nashville Public Library, is proud to present HELVETICA, a film about how the world’s most ubiquitous typeface changed global visual culture.”[more]

Poetry News For November 20, 2008

Poetry News:

— “David Alpaugh, who has both run and won a poetry book contest himself, offers his astute analysis of the business of selecting poetry books for publication by holding a competition…” —

— Colossus of Rhodes to be rebuilt as giant light sculpture —

— Trinity Rep Radio Theater: This program will feature stories and poems that explore the relationship between mothers and daughters. [MP3] —

— In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours —

— Not the original? A new translation by Burton Raffel offers a modern version of Chaucer’s medieval masterpiece. —

— The National Book Awards winners —

— The Review Review reviews lit mags (just print ones?) —

— DIY Poetry Movements from alt.NPR: Poetry Off the Shelf Podcast: How Zukofsky and the Language Poets got started, and the rules for starting a movement of your own. [MP3] —

— What is the social role of a micro-press in today’s literary marketplace, environment, and economy? —

Google has Life Magazine photo archives online. Not too many poets & no women. Some Millay, etc if you search “poetess” though. (And you better behave or Bette Davis is going to get you. I have to say, that is a very weird combo of reader/poet.)

Is there anyone out there who has cable TV / Discovery Health & can tape a show for me?

Dec 08, 10:00 pm
(60 minutes)

repeat:
Dec 09, 2:00 am
(60 minutes)

Mystery Diagnosis
The Baby Who Wouldn’t Stop Crying

Baby Averi Williams develops a bluish tint to the whites of her eyes and a bulging forehead; 15 year-old, Lynn Sanders is leading a normal life when she begins to experience a deep nagging pain in her hands during swim practice.

Poetry News For November 6, 2008

Poetry News:

— The book-length poem is presented in a series of atmospheric vignettes written primarily in brief couplets, interrupted periodically with parentheticals and postcards and another review here at Ron Slate’s blog —

— At the risk of oversimplification, there’s a schism in American poetics: writers who live in the world (so-called lived experience) vs. writers who live by the word —

— Poet lands book deal with major publisher —

— Anne Sexton’s Scrapbook: A look inside the young poet’s life 16 years before she won the Pulitzer Prize. —

— Myth and magic of Wilfred Owen —

— In just a few lines, Joe renders redundant the contents of entire libraries on aboriginal dispossession and cultural destruction. —

— The Measure of Democracy By John Ashbery, August Kleinzahler, Joshua Mehigan, Mary Jo Bang and J. D. McClatchy—

— PW’s Best Books of the Year —

Court Green wants poems about the ’70s &
Shenandoah wants poems and stuff about Flannery O’Connor &
tuesday;an art journal is fresh &
Anti- is fresh &
dead mule is fresh & so is
womb poetry too &
deadline is about a month away: “Initiated in 1998, the Stadler Fellowship offers a recent MFA, MA, or PhD graduate in poetry the opportunity to receive professional training in arts administration and literary editing.”

Poetry News For September 18, 2008

Poetry News:

— In a country where poets are revered like rock stars, Akhmatova was a celebrity, but that also made her a dark, dangerous figure in the Socialist paradise —

— The lone witness in poetess Madhumita Shukla murder case was attacked in his village Gohadia in Kaiserganj, police said on Tuesday —

— It is based on Anne Sexton’s “Transformations,” a poetic, adult reinterpretation of familiar fairy tales —

— France Encrusts Wall-to-Wall Poetry in Sofia [I like the idea of something being "encrusted" with poetry] —

— Hear Gwendolyn Brooks read “the mother” and Theodore Roethke read “My Papa’s Waltz,” with insights by ex-US Poet Laureate Donald Hall. [MP3] —

— Salt has launched Horizon Review, its second online literary magazine and part of its planned expansion into free-to-view Web journals —

— Perhaps it’s the duality between the intuitive, interiority and the strong authoritative, apocalyptic voices that guide these poems —

I changed our dental insurance to a more local dentist - Dr. Anissa Burgess. Darryl went in for a teeth cleaning & sat down in the chair & asked if the TV (People’s Court) could be turned off. She said no. He asked if it could be turned down. She said no & told him that he seemed like the problematic type who wouldn’t be satisfied with the teeth-cleaning job & he said all I want is a teeth cleaning, then he left. LOL way to make a good first impression, new dentist of ours! (And Darryl is a polite sensitive new age guy so I doubt he was a jerk about it.) He said there was no TP or paper towels in the bathroom, either. Meh. We are both stuck in bizarro world these days. He didn’t get into the dental chair until 55 minutes after the time of appointment; maybe she wanted him to leave because they were overbooked? Or perhaps she simply (obviously) really, really, enjoys daytime TV & would have preferred to watch the People’s Court in peace?

Unfortunately, I’ve been seeing a lot of the medical profession these days - 3 appointments so far this week. Most of it has been a good experience but I have to wonder what in the heck some people are thinking. My [very few] “WTF encounters” have been with Interns or with office staff. With the Interns - most of my care is at a University Medical Center - it’s like they didn’t know yet that it’s not cool to exclaim “is that permanent??!!” or whatever. And with the staff: yes I want to stand in front of the little window in the packed waiting room, giving you my medical history in front of everyone so you can decide if you want to pronounce my “referral fax form” worthy enough to give to the Dr. or not. (Was not at the University Medical Center.)

Poetry News For January 14, 2008

Poetry News:

— In ‘‘Elegy,’’ poet Mary Jo Bang has taken on one of the largest and most difficult subjects in all of literature —

— National Book Critics Circle finalists —

— John Milton: the poet who gave us ‘Star Trek’ and ‘The Matrix’ —

— Former poet laureate opening another chapter in his life —

— How lovely it is that there are words and sounds —

— John Ashbery, Octavio Paz, Stanley Kunitz and Robert Pinsky all wrote poems for him —

— he calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush, whom he calls “a booted, sombrero’d/cowboy Caligula/who couldn’t manage a straw/horse on a parade float…” —

— Ex-carpenter warms up tp poet laureate honor —

— Editorial: Frost home vandalism is deeply disturbing —

— Poets and jazz artists find rhythm and rhyme —

— Taslima Nasreen has been chosen for the prestigious Simon de Beauvoir feminist award in recognition of her writing on rights for women —

— Vendetta fear after poet murdered —

— Denise Clarke is entertaining as poet Anne Sexton in Sylvia Plath Must Not Die —

— If Fence magazine were an actual fence, it would be a portable one —

— A different kind of poetry concentrates more strikingly on expressiveness —

I’m going to Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness in March. I bought a plane ticket but I don’t know where I’m staying yet. I’ve only been to D.C. once, for some computer security training. But I took a train to the Mall area and wandered around for half a day. Saw about an hour’s worth of the Smithsonian. I wish I had more time to see stuff but I won’t. I’d like to meet with my members of Congress, too, but I won’t be there on those specified constituent days. After all the letters I’ve written them I’m not sure their staff would schedule me anyway hahaha.

Poetry News For December 4, 2007

Poetry News:

— JOYCE KILMER SLAIN ON THE WEST FRONT; Former Member of Times Staff Had Won Sergeantcy in the 165th of Infantry. HIS WRITINGS WELL KNOWN —

— Sometimes I’ve felt as if I’ve spent my whole life trying to make a poem shimmer, just shimmer just above the page, to make it just lift a little off the page. —

— We reflect on the music that’s been inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, with her daughter Linda Gray Sexton and Robert Clawson who managed the Sexton’s experimental band “Anne Sexton and Her Kind.” —

— He’s a major force, not just in Long Beach poetry, but he’s been a major force in Southern California poetry —

— Neruda Songs, a cycle for mezzo-soprano and orchestra by Peter Lieberson, has won the 2008 Grawemeyer Award —

— In the late 1970s, John Phillip Santos, a young, award-winning poet, wrote a letter to Laura Riding Jackson, whose poetry he admired —

Poetry News for November 14, 2007

Poetry News:

— Says “Vers Libre” Is Prose, Not Poetry; Robert Underwood Johnson Deplores Excesses of Ultra-Modern Writers in Rebellion Against What They Call Tyranny of Form By Joyce Kilmer —

— Working Collaboration at The Wave Poetry Farm —

— the Supreme Court refused Tuesday to hear an appeal from poet Amiri Baraka —

— Two Requiems, different paths —

— The Double Life of Robert Louis Stevenson —

— Former VT State Poet a finalist for National Book Awards and also winners probably announced here tonight —

Keep your fingers crossed for me today.

Poetry News for October 23, 2007

Poetry News:

— In a sequence about T.S. Eliot in California with his love interest Emily Hale, the couple visits the In-N-Out hamburger chain —

— At the point where one stage of our lives draws to a close and we are about to enter the next stage, there is always room for the hope of great things —

— Larry Matsuda & Tess Gallagher —

— John Hartley Williams is impressed by the responses to his tricky exercise on adapted adages —

— Via extremely rare recordings, Radio Beats will also feature the voices of other seminal American poets including Anne Sexton, Beat-era godfather Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Beat icon Allen Ginsberg —

— The poems that Auden came to dislike, including “Spain,” “Sir, no man‘ enemy,” and “September 1, 1939,” are not to be found here —

— Jeffery Brown reports on how poetry publishers keep turning out new material in today’s fast-paced commercial media culture —

— Allen Ginsberg, American poet and Buddhist, was also eloquent about dictators like Than Schwe: In a work he called “Wichita Vortex Sutra”¦” —

“…it‘ more like copping-a-feel reading. There‘ something yucky about it ….” Well I guess that argument does apply to poetry, nowadays, above all, if you agree with his reasoning.

There’s more here at this article too, which says “… longer-standing online ventures include Blackbird [which is fresh btw], failbetter.com, storySouth, Drunken Boat, and The Barcelona Review. Newer online journals ““ Memorious, GutCult, Small Spiral Notebook ” pop up on the NewPages site.”

(This was the last short story collection I read — if you don’t count Sentence — and it was great.)

****************

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You can learn more and sign up for free by visiting:

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Poetry News for October 3, 2007

Poetry News:

— New Â£29m Bodleian Library halted —

— Johns Hopkins U. Will Resume Publication of Long-Dead Literary Review —

— Jordanian court convicts alleged al-Qaida poet for slandering king —

— Poet John Keats A “˜Bright Star”™ For Abbie Cornish —

— Fairy Tale Themed Radio Theatre —

— A Quotable, Pithy Guide to Aphorists —

— Listen to acclaimed poet Robin Becker recite from her latest book “Domain of Perfect Affection” as well as some older material and two new poems from her reading on Oct. 1, 2007 {mp3} —

— Esteemed poet Rich to read at Bama Theatre —

A scholar traces a proud history of insubordination as committed by notable women

Poetry News for September 12, 2007

Poetry News:

— Joe Zawinul, jazz musician behind Bitches Brew, dies at 75 —

— Number of these [books sold in the USA] that sold fewer than 99 copies: 1,123,000 [link good for a few days] —

— ‘Uncanny coincidences’ lead police to explore Taslima angle to Hyderabad [bombings] —

— A thinking parrot’s loving good-bye —

— Poets with local ties honored [ congrats Amanda ]—

— Scandalous poem, novelized —

— look down this list of 10 words, choose seven of them, and immediately write a poem incorporating those seven words and your warped catchphrase or proverb —

— Jarman to read from new book at APSU —

— Anne Sexton: Teacher of Weird Abundance [link good for a few days] —

Does anybody have any tips about teaching someone the idea of stressed /unstressed syllables? Ironically, I had a hard time getting this across to my adult literacy student last time. (Totally my fault.)

***

When I saw Hairspray: the Musical (a while ago), the theater also showed a trailer for the forthcoming Beatles-based musical/music-video-thing, Across the Universe. Alright already, Baby Boomers — I get it! The ’60s were revolutionary. Sheesh. Oh and there are Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin biopics forthcoming too and Oliver Stone is doing another Vietnam movie.

Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Tool

There are 69 Poets born between 1931 and 1940

There are 112 Poets born between 1941 and 1950

There are 61 Poets born between 1951 and 1960

There are 10 Poets born between 1961 and 1970 (My generation — I’ll be 40 next month)

There are 0 Poets born between 1971 and 2007 Sorry, 36-year-olds!

Of course, there isn’t enough information to be statistically significant, really, but it does make me laugh. Har. Hee.

Epilogue:

A blogger (?) 20 years from now:

“When I saw Movie X, the theater (?) also showed a trailer for the forthcoming U2-based musical/music-video-thing, With or Without You. Alright already, Generation X — I get it! The ’80s were [I can't think of anything except "crappy"]. Sheesh. Oh and there are Joe Strummer and Ronald Reagan biopics forthcoming too and Oliver Stone is doing another Vietnam movie.

Poetry News for August 23, 2007

Poetry News:

— We old white geezers never heard of him until last month when his suit against the governor of New Jersey reached the U.S. Supreme Court. —

— Trial Run for LongPen in Bookstores —

— …villanelles aren’t standard fare on the wings of most category B prisons —

— 2007 National Book Festival —

— Poetry-only shop well-versed in success —

— The Problem Solvers investigate Vanity Press companies —

— Sharing memories of poet Anne Sexton —

Still over 100F. Ugh.

Yesterday I was walking to my car after work when I saw a giant black mushroom cloud. Bert the Turtle would have been very disappointed. I just stood there and did not duck and cover. (And I am old enough to have experienced nuke drills in school.)

Some adorability.

Does anyone have a really good (tomato) gazpacho recipe they would care to share?

If you've clicked on a tag, you will see posts from my blog that have featured that tag. At the bottom of the page is a list of all the tags I've ever used on this blog. -- Jilly