Poetry News:

1. — The Oxford English Dictionary is 80! —
2. — … I returned to the business at hand, one of the students raised his arm and said, “Sir, there are bombs exploding outside and we are reading poetry here. …” —
3. — I think a certain amount of stupidity is necessary to cultivate an appreciation for poetry —
4. — The Jane Crown Show Show: Jane hosts Joan d’Arc,Cori Brackett,BL Kennedy for HG2 —
5. — Poems for Autumn —
6. — New Lit Mag Alert —
7. — Literary criticism and other humanities fields need to devote more attention to the military, writes Keith Gandal —

Did anyone out there go to the Southern Festival of Books? How was it?

I watched a lot of TV while I was in the hospital, something I don’t really do much of. I saw a trailer for the new Oliver Stone movie about GWB & it’s kind of nightmarish-looking haha.

Poetry News:

1. — Versed in the Blood —
2. — Liquor laureate whose poetry is the toast of the town —
3. — Yeah like there’s a lot of money in jazz —
4. — Marie Ponsot with Sally Dawidoff and Jean Gallagher —
5. — Which poems best sum up teaching and academia? —
6. — Polish poet’s pet immortalised —

What’s wrong with baseball - mathematically that is?

“MTSU’s Gaylord Brewer may be America’s least cynical nihilistic poet. A good chunk of his work features a keen awareness of what’s coming–it’s not good–while reveling in the knowledge that what’s coming isn’t yet here. In The Martini Diet, his latest collection, Brewer writes, “But they’ve not arrived yet, / the monsters of our reckoning, / and my boys and I still live the brilliant / moments we were born to.” Vandy’s Kate Daniels, who knew (correctly) from the moment she turned five that she was born to write, shares a similar sentiment in her poem “Crowns,” which she dedicated to the almost-nihilist Philip Levine: “[A]nd your mind opening up like the pine forest swishing fragrantly overhead / way up in the dark that is coming, but remains, for the moment, blissfully at bay.”
Wed., Oct. 22, 4 p.m., 2008 @ Austin Peay State University [more here]

Poetry News:

1. — American poets, beloved by critics, have never passed muster with the Swedes —
2. — 50 of your favourite words —
3. — One would have to be a genius oneself to grasp the full significance of Arthur Rimbaud, or at least have the ability to hold many opposed ideas in one’s mind at the same time and still function fully —
4. — Boston Orchestra Makes Typewriters Sing —
5. — Nick Flynn at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival —
6. — The TLS’s poetry editor wins the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2008 —
7. — Emily Dickinson, Immoral Hussy?! —
8. — Chicago-based writer Brandi Homan’s first full length collection of poems, Hard Reds, is a fun read chock full of all those things hard red might suggest —
9. — Back in high school, I fell in love with Bill Knott’s visionary poems, some only a few lines long —
10. — And despite the narrative and emotional tilt of the passage, this is a collage —
11. — I’m sure that most of my neighbors don’t know I’m a poet —

Bossa Nova Still Sexy At 50

Hey I’m back. That was an interesting experience. If anyone has any questions about the Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Center (like if you got here through a Google search) you can email me. I have to eat 10 GRAMS of salt per day. hahaha. I might try a pair of these too. More tests next month. What a weird life.

Poetry News:

1. — If we could read the poets that move huge audiences elsewhere in the world, would it wake up our own? —
2. — “Accident Plays a Part in Art” from Poetry Magazine Podcast … with Kasischke on Ken Burns, Lindsay on Krakatau, Sheffield on fishing, and Logan on Hart Crane (and David Foster Wallace). [mp3] —
3. — Ted Hughes’s letters contain some splendid perceptions and useful biographical material among a mass of interminable explication. —
4. — As the title suggests, Cities of Flesh and the Dead isn’t afraid of addressing loss or fear or violence. —
5. — Hey Bookslut reviewed my book thanks some happy in a cruddy week. Thanks for getting my jokes. —
6. — Poetry that doesn’t toe a party line —

Yep - testing is all scheduled. I’m looking forward to a resolution.

Poetry News:

So while I’ve been out Hayden Carruth died, the fake anthology was published (which I think is funny - the Rod McKuen is a nice touch) and the Nobel Committee said American writers are unworthy ….

1. — Exclusive Preview: Bob Dylan’s ‘Tell Tale Signs’ —
2. — Picasso’s interest in poetry comes as no surprise to those familiar with his life. —
3. — The Jane Crown Show: Joe Milford Hosts Jill Alexander Essbaum —
4. — Why do you write? Why did you start? —
5. — Linking Physics and Language Art through Tetractys Poetry —
6. — During the war, my own father was a sailor on the New York docks; had Crane survived and picked him up for some rough trade, I’d have been flattered. —
7. — “There’s Something Haunting and Nihilistic About Your Hairdresser” —

I’ve lost almost 10 pounds on my “OMG I feel like I’m going to throw up” diet LOL. I think I’m going into the hospital for 3 days for a bunch of tests (related to the dysautonomia; gravity I hate you.) I’ll find out in the morning. I’ll be back next week I reckon. xxxooo

Poetry News:

1. — Much closer to home, Wingard also doesn’t know who puts the shells on H.D.’s grave; he guesses it can only be fans who know her work —
2. — ‘The Odyssey’ and ‘The Iliad’ are giving up new secrets about the ancient world —
3. — There is a long tradition of poems written in response to paintings —
4. — Manchester University’s John Rylands Library will be digitising much of its renowned collection of medieval manuscripts, including parts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales —
5. — When asked for advice on how the city can heal and progress in the wake of scandal, the city’s poet laureate Naomi Long Madgett, responded with a poem [sidebar] —
6. — Seeking the next N.H. poet laureate —

The lit mag reviews at New Pages are fresh. Isn’t it nice of them to keep publishing that? Why don’t you buy ‘em a beer?

***

I used to get HD an AE mixed up haha. When I was writing that Ted Williams Frozen Head poem I kept thinking/writing Ted Hughes instead of Ted Williams too.

***

***

My hand hurts, so I am taking a break. I have news scheduled for tomorrow, though and an appt in the pain clinic today so maybe that will help.

Poetry News:

1. — What The “Subprime Poetry Crisis” Means For The Overheated Metap[h]or Market —
2. — Poster poems: The rhythm of the falling rain —
3. — Wordplay with Pat Reviere-Seel and Jessica Newton [MP3] —
4. — A report on the new poet laureate of the U.S. A question from Yemen about Emily Dickinson. And poetry set to music, on a new album from France’s first lady, Carla Bruni. —
5. — This story of a wife’s betrayal and her husband’s fidelity unto death stings me with the awareness that small, unnoticed nobility endures in our midst —
6. — Poets, we think, can’t help but be poets and do poet-ish things. —

McCain’s Economic Plan For Nation: ‘Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress’ (ONN)

Poetry News Saturday SCIENCE! edition:

1. — Being an athlete or merely a fan improves language skills when it comes to discussing their sport because parts of the brain usually involved in playing sports are instead used to understand sport language —
2. — “It’s probably no coincidence that many languages around the world have repetitious syllables in their ‘child words’ – baby and daddy in English, papa in Italian and tata (grandpa) in Hungarian, for example” —
3. — There are numerous examples in our daily language of metaphors which make a connection between cold temperatures and emotions such as loneliness, despair and sadness [fixed link] —
4. — Neuroaesthetics promises to reinvigorate science’s search for a theory of beauty —
5. — New Life For Middle English: Norwegian Detective Work Gives New Knowledge Of The English Language —
6. — By the end of the century, the two disciplines were officially divorced and poetry was deemed the worst way in which to express scientific knowledge —

Poetry News:

1. — So the idea that a poem can be made poetic by its structure alone is open to question, at the very least. —
2. — Joe Milford Hosts Grace Cavialeri - from The Jane Crown Show —
3. — Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour with Andrena Zawinski & Shakespeare [MP3] —
4. — Nobody reads poetry anymore —
5. — A woman who is one of the last people alive who knew writer Thomas Hardy is to perform one of his poems at the age of 102. —
6. — After two decades behind bars, Win Tin tells of life in one of the world’s toughest jails —

Adventures in reading miscomprehension

Poetry News:

1. — The Rebirth of a Suicidal Genius —
2. — Poetry, Pottery & Pies Raises Funds for Poet Laureate’s Medical Bills —
3. — Shakespeare’s Bootlegger, Dylan’s Biographer, Nabokov, and Me —
4. — Nadine Chapman: Colleague and friend —
5. — Alum’s Passion for Poetry Pays Off —
6. — There’s an inherent interest in Knight’s personal experiences within the asylum, and all of the poetry contains a deep introspection that opens a thin sliver of light into the line between sanity and insanity. —

Poetry News:

1. — Pallimed: Arts & Humanities (current posts about Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall, “pain poet” Jane Cave Winscom, etc.) —
2. — poets transform the mountain lit scene & article is here —
3. — Win Tin, a poet, journalist and democracy advocate, was freed Tuesday after 19 years in prison —
4. — This month’s workshop is an exercise in self-portraiture, and it takes as its starting-point a quotation from the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda —
5. — Collins are to exuviate abstergently 2,000 rarely used words from their dictionaries to make way for new ones … but can we smell an olid rattus rattus? —
6. — “Should we have had more of a business plan?” he added. “Probably. But then the publishers that did have business plans didn’t do any better.” —

“What is it about this painting that such infamous people in history have owned it?”

Poetry News:

1. — America’s Poet Laureate –who writes about the Niagara River –is a woman who is searching for balance between her very public role and her notoriously private life —
2. — How to write poetry: Poet Wendy Cope explains what makes a really superb poem —
3. — Elizabeth Bishop’s Great Village —
4. — “Click on the link below, left, to hear an extract of Bin Laden’s poetry recital” —
5. — Those Who Write, Teach —
6. — Joe Milford Hosts Evan Willner — The Jane Crown Show [MP3] —

Poetry News:

1. — David Wagoner’s new collection of poems, “A Map of the Night,” feels like a summing-up by the author many consider the dean of Northwest poetry. —
2. — For days, I’ve trolled my poetry shelves for the right words to grieve with, the way an insomniac pharmacist — desperate for sleep — might pick through her tinctures —
3. — Film takes look at life of Emily Dickinson —
4. — But this remarkable collection by someone who perhaps invented the concept of “oversharing” long before it became fashionable, reminds us of why he mattered then, and still does now —
5. — Poets have always been fascinated with dreams. Please share yours —
6. — The poem is one of 20 that have started appearing in sidewalks since July —
7. — Burmese papers report losses due to strict policies of censor board deputy chief —

September is Pain Awareness Month. Good timing, what with the stock market & everything.

My town has been out of gasoline for a while. A lot of Nashville is out, too. A station here in town got some gasoline yesterday, Darryl said, and the Sheriff had a squad car in the parking lot & there is a huge line. Reminds me of the 1970’s lines at gasoline pumps, which I do remember. I don’t understand the CNN article that says it is panic. Kingston Springs was out of gas on the Sunday of the hurricane. I haven’t been too mobile lately so I’m not sure what the heck is going on.

Dear Onion Radio News: if you are going to make fun [MP3] of my State, at least learn how to pronounce the Governor’s name haha.