Poetry Hut Blog
Homer

Poetry News:

1. — ‘Book of hours’ has rare female voice —
2. — Avant-garde cockney slammed for slang that doesn’t rhyme —
3. — Suggested blog topic: The Career Poet and How to Make Money & Influence People —
4. — Job: Associate Editor/Staff Writer - St. Louis Cardinals (St. Louis, MO) —
5. — Editor and translator Cor van den Heuvel is a haiku aficionado whose single-image poems capture moments from my own baseball-centered childhood —
6. — North Jersey also gives Kleinzahler his other great subject: American masculinity, the qualities we attribute to tough guys and men —
7. — As Memorial Day nears, James Winn lauds these works of war poetry —
8. — Ancient poem found on wood strip —
9. — So how much Morse, in iambic pentameters or otherwise, is out there? —

Trouble And Honey (I capped the “and” in the title because I thought it looked better, with that font I used haha.) results:

It’s been just over a week since the blog post that announced the availability of my book. There are just under 300 readers of this blog’s feed (296, according to Feedburner) plus 100-200 actual-human-being-visitors per day, so there are about 400 to 500 regular readers of Poetry Hut Blog every day. The blog tends toward the higher traffic when something negative is going on - scandal, death, po-biz in-fighting, etc.

400 people = daily readership (-ish)

83 downloads of free PDF version of Trouble And Honey = about 20% of readership (or the inverse = 80% were uninterested)

5 individuals donated via PayPal = (6% of 83 downloads; 1.25% of readership) This is better than the .06% that was recently referenced in the NYT, though my sample is way smaller. [link found in the techdirt rss feed thank you]

(Glass is half-empty: 98.75% of readership and 94% of downloaders did not donate.)

13 individual *orders* at Lulu.com = 3.25% of readership or 15.6% of downloaders (though some of the orders were for multiple copies — for example, someone bought 5 at once, maybe a sibling — Lulu.com doesn’t specify who the purchasers are BTW)

So there you have it. Check my math (muscle relaxants LOL).

Thank you & also, Americans, have a nice holiday tomorrow. I’ll be thinking about those who took an oath to defend the US Constitution.

Poetry News:

1. — A book with no words wins major literary award in Australia —
2. — Ancient coffin with scenes from Homer’s poems unearthed —
3. — it can pass for basic Olden-speak, the lingua franca of so many fantasy novels these days —
4. — Fran Brearton finds emotional power in Dear Ghosts, a timely collection of poems by Tess Gallagher —
5. — Defending free speech case leads to documentary [and more here] —
6. — Uni sacks literary board —
7. — Found this via my day job —

Sgt Pepper must die!

Poetry News:

1. A scientific discovery on the trail of Homer —
2. But what do such poets actually do, and are arts funders playing fair? —
3. A city, a writer and the murder that made his name —
4. Her Silence Spoke Volumes —
5. ‘Love’ is a great word to sing —
6. Hidden Stories and Unsung Songs, All for $8 —

Poetry News:

1. This was a pretty good rant: compared to the [invective] that pass for ‘poetry’ published each Saturday… —
2. the University of Sydney will soon possess the sole remaining chair in Australian literature —
3. Keats House will be restored to original 19th-century condition —
4. Where is the Iraqi War Literature? —
5. The failure of these poems is also the failure of the politics behind them —
6. Or literature “negotiates” the “power dynamics” of its own time —

Severe space storm headed for Earth Crap. I swear those things “get to me.” I need to make a tin foil hat now. Be on the lookout for auroras tonight.

If only a few fragments of the diner survive, it will be a loss to every Washingtonian

1. Award-winning poet Kay Ryan describes her writing process as “self imposed emergencies”
2. “The Odyssey”: The original chick lit?
3. The Texas Commission on the Arts recently announced its call for nominations to fulfill the 2007 and 2008 positions of state poet laureate….
4. Verse to lull you and to wake you up
5. So unsolicited submissions are actually read?
6. Spam poems are the new Shakespeare

Poetry News:

1. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Eight New Entries in The 2007 Writer’s Market Guide to Literary Journals
2. Who really wrote ‘Odyssey,’ ‘Iliad’? Evidence points not to Homer, not to any man, but to a woman
3. North, South to form joint literary organization
4. Brief reflection on the sun by Miroslav Holub
5. Haiku poem samples by Japanese masters
6. instead of asking for sonnets, villanelles and short stories, they started asking for money to buy guns

• Scenes from Homer found in Cyprus ‘warrior tomb’
• Bukowski, who lived in Los Angeles, wrote too much, and too indiscriminately
• Naomi Shihab Nye‘ poetry spans generations
• Jane Duran’s workshop
• Agnes Walsh named St. John’s poet laureate
• Chattanooga Festival Of Writers: A Literary Event For All

Thanks to Michael over at Stick Poet Super Hero for pointing out that link about Valentine’s Day. Hope you had a good one. I got chocolate. And dinner whenever we can get our schedules straight. Kind of the downside of being married to a jazz musician I guess. He works nights.

• Are We Happy Yet?
• Poetry Rules Valentine’s Day Online
• Art Experts Protest Sale of Rare Set of Blakes (requires bug me not)
• Homer’s Ithaca located
• Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti would rather be writing about love