Poetry Hut Blog
Christian Wiman

Poetry News:

1. — I love reworking, I love editing, love love love revision, revision, revision, revision. [not safe for work] —
2. — A poet reconciling verse and living —
3. — Mike Watt, Lee Ranaldo, more set James Joyce to music —
4. — Karen S. Williams June 30 Poetry Workshop, Reading and Booksigning - Open to the Public [Detroit: WCCC campus on the East Side] —
5. — Report: 2 million artists in US, many struggling —
6. — So far, Ostriker sounds the same yearning note that Cobain does elsewhere in the journals —
7. — A new survey says men are more likely than women to share their creative works online, even though both sexes participate in creative activities at roughly equal rates —

LOL I think if Persephone was a guy who was kidnapped by a big powerful God, then male-Persephone’s difficulties would be looked upon as a “heroic journey” rather than victimhood. Joseph Campbell stuff was 20 years ago for me (ask me about the Harmonic Convergence! haha) so let me know if I have this correct. Separation, initiation/ordeal, coming back — that’s the 3 parts of the journey right?

I was thinking about all this when I revisited How to trivialise women’s poetry by Eva Salzman:

“Male poets grappling with life and death issues in their writing are dragon-slayers. Women embarked on such odysseys are rarely granted similarly heroic status. Instead, they’re victims, a less noble assignation which handily renders them more vulnerable to any criticism embedded with ulterior motives, and more susceptible to being undervalued and misunderstood, except in the context of a tragedy and/or their role as mother. Is this an avoidance of any serious examination of Plath’s work? Sadly this lack of critical engagement is how most women poets are viewed, or are not viewed, as is more the case. It’s no doubt naïve to want ability and talent to be the king-makers’ main criteria.”

(Yes I’m still thinking about Pluto and Plath and that Gurlesque article from yesterday and my comments about it and Plath’s “Tulips” — that poem where it is wintertime and the country of health is far far away and springtime Tulips are oppressive.)

If you can spare some prayers for my father-in-law that would be great thank you.

Poetry News:

1. — “The Poem of a Life,” Mark Scroggins’s terrific new biography, never strays far from Zukofsky the poet. —
2. — Over the past 100 years Milton’s standing has declined more steeply than that of any other great English poet —
3. — City officials see Cornish as a poet of the people, someone who will reach across racial and socioeconomic lines to promote literacy through poetry —
4. — Poet Li-Young Lee achieves transcendence in works such as ‘To Hold’ —
5. — Maya Angelou’s poem in praise of Hillary —
6. — Lilya would become the muse for Mayakovsky’s poetry for the next 20 years, and the couple a key presence in the Soviet Union’s new literary and artistic movements —
7. — Brian Turner had a master’s in fine arts degree tucked in his ruck sack when he enlisted at the age of 30 —
8. — Poetry turns out to be a better survival tool than you might think —
9. — Gloomy poets are rarely very good, and good poets rarely very gloomy —

So what’s the deal? Why do the mainstream media hardly ever do articles or reviews about women poets? It is often hard to find ANY article to link to.

Are there more men poets than women poets? (When I got my MFA, the poetry students were mostly women.) Are men poets simply better poets than women poets? More interesting? Better at self-promotion maybe? Do articles in which the subject has a penis make for increased sales or something? Are men poets more likely to get published by a large press? What? Is? The? Deal? Here?

Poetry News:

1. — The Happy Endings Foundation hoax —
2. — Vendor of verse: It’s personal at NYC street ‘poem shop’ —
3. — “Poetry arises out of a mind that feels itself in some way to be cracked” —
4. — Editorial: A Muse Unplugged —
5. — In three books, over eight years, Matthea Harvey has moved to the front of the pack of interesting poets writing in English —
6. — New Tay disaster: William McGonagall faces challenge to title of world’s worst poet —
7. — Greeks Go for All the Marbles In Effort to Get Back Artifacts —
8. — A monument to the outstanding poet Joseph Brodsky will be set up nearby the American Embassy —
9. — Former state poet laureate Grace Paley was remembered in a memorial service —

– Physics Nobel winner(s) will be announced today. This link’ll probably tell you the winners.

– Your cabbage: now with 100% more anti-depressants and oral contraceptives.

– Ron Paul was in Nashville this weekend & I attended. He seems like the only antidote to this, to me. I think our Constitutional Republic has been replaced by a corporate-controlled oligarchy. There are a bunch of videos of the rally at You Tube.

Poetry News:

1. — MtvU, the subsidiary of MTV Networks that is broadcast only on college campuses, will announce today that it has selected its first poet laureate —
2. — a poem that considers explicitly the relation between old ways and new generations —
3. — Meet the many famous poets of modern America —
4. — The area is best known, of course, because of “Spoon River Anthology” —
5. — The poems touch on the ideas of confusion and remembering, as well as anecdotes about the past —
6. — Verse flowed from dying poet —
7. — The distinctive voices of Gilbert, Gregg retain their strength —
8. — Hillman’s poetry: Think jazz —
9. — Poetry magazine’s editor rediscovers his spirituality and his voice —
10. — Hopkins and the dark night —
11. — How an Englishman in Somerville is becoming the most feared man in American letters —
12. — “here’s a [Grace Paley] poem I’ve had up for years on my bulletin board” —
13. — A father reflects on his Pulitzer-winning daughter [may require bug me not] —

Total Lunar Eclipse to Occur on Tuesday and the astrological implications if you are so inclined.

Poetry Hut Blog and WhimsyLand are blog twins.

• Well-kent phrases from the Bard’s best poems
• Christian Wiman’s verses range from the bleak to the witty
• Poet Mark Strand calls dust-jacket photos “the door to the dark room of the imagination”
• Contest for best Caltrain love poem
• Browning’s dreamy snake girl goes on sale
• The agents were using well-known poems as the cyphers for encoding their messages