Poetry Hut Blog

Poetry News:

1. — 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 —
2. — 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 —
3. — Poet lands book deal with major publisher —
4. — Anne Sexton’s Scrapbook: A look inside the young poet’s life 16 years before she won the Pulitzer Prize. —
5. — Myth and magic of Wilfred Owen —
6. — In just a few lines, Joe renders redundant the contents of entire libraries on aboriginal dispossession and cultural destruction. —
7. — The Measure of Democracy By John Ashbery, August Kleinzahler, Joshua Mehigan, Mary Jo Bang and J. D. McClatchy—
8. — 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:

1. — Memorial for Idaho poet, kayaker Studebaker to be Saturday in Twin Falls —
2. — Poets, Fiddlers and Leaving Seattle —
3. — Exene Cervenka: Fom X To Missouri —
4. — Tuesday’s Poem: “Old Timers’ Day” by Donald Hall from White Apples and the Taste of Stone [mp3] —
5. — What Am I Doing Wrong With This Poem? —
6. — Milarepa picked for 22nd Napa Sonoma Film Festival 2008 —
7. — August Kleinzahler’s ugly gifts —
8. — What makes Shapiro so important to American poetry right now is the success with which he’s taken over the territory of fiction writers —

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Barack Obama was among the 69 senators voting to broaden government spy powers and give immunity to phone companies that aided in secret wiretapping. way to go.

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I must have been living in an alternate reality or am utterly clueless or oblivious because this confused the heck out of me:

“If born female into the majority of US American households, one will live 20, perhaps 30 years under the moniker ‘girl.’” [comments]

20 or 30 years?? What??

Has that really been your experience? Daaang! Personally, the only time I ever have had the adult moniker “girl” is with some of my mostly-African-American-coworkers at the HCBU I work at — and I have the feeling that the Gurlesque “girl” and the HCBU “girl” are not equivalent.

What do you think?

Why do most American women have the moniker “girl” ’til maybe age 30 nowadays? (?) Is that something they are self-identifying with? Or is it a generational thing that I am oblivious to? The comment that I linked to says that society is doing it to women. Powerfully.

Do you think you are a “girl?” Do others call you “girl”? How old are you? Where do you live? Help I’m confused.

– signed, 40-year-old woman

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. — The Mainichi Newspapers is inviting participation in the 12th Annual Mainichi Haiku Contest —
2. — Punk rocker Exene explores a creative space in Missouri —
3. — DNA Analysis Exposes Fake Schiller Skull —
4. — “Sort of Gone,” a collection of poems by Sarah Freligh, follows the adventures and misadventures - mostly misadventures - of a ballplayer who makes a life in the game in part to show his worthless sot of a father that he can do it. —
5. — “I mask it. I make my poems seem simpler then they really are,” Snyder said. —
6. — Everyday world sizzles with alarm in his poetic vision —
7. — Stafford’s wartime poetry shows the power of his convictions —
8. — A web of associations connects a group of New England writers, including Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe. —
9. — This is pretty cool - congrats —

A prediction that Google will end up buying Ingram Digital (and Booksurge). I’m sure those folks over in La Vergne, TN would be surprised to hear that.

All I can say is, I’m glad that I forgot to watch the Kentucky Derby this weekend.  Sometimes  I think there’s something wrong with me - I cannot cannot cannot stand to see an animal get hurt. I have a greater reaction to that than I do from seeing a human get hurt. Though in my defense, I don’t like to watch those stupid home video TV shows where people get hit in the balls and stuff, either.

The Kentucky Derby was always a big deal when I was growing up. My dad’s drive-in restaurant wasn’t too far from the Detroit Race Course (actually in Livonia) and a lot of the regular customers (my extended family) were bookies and gamblers. So on derby day my mom would make sure we’d pick the horse’s names out of a hat (a “to go” white paper bag, actually) and my dad would put the b&w TV with a coat hanger antenna up on the counter & we’d watch the race.

Poetry News:

1. — Today’s poem is “An Ode to Drunkenness and Other Criminal Activities” by Rebecca Loudon —
2. — U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic contributed original verse for the liner, in an appropriate fit between poet and musician —
3. — New Buk on DVD —
4. — Online conversation with Stryker brigade poet Brian Turner —
5. — Al Young took to writing poetry, as he describes it in one poem, “to make out the sound of my own background music.” —
6. — An opportunity to do something good —
7. — What’s The Best Writing Tip of All Time? —
8. — Argentine poet wins Spain’s highest literary honour —
9. — Lifetime achievement ‘double’ for Cynthia Ozick —
10. — Bullies, Addicts and Losers: A Poet Loves Them All —
11. — A newly discovered cache of poetry video shorts —

See you Monday.

ps. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled this week that evidence seized during arrests that are illegal under state law can still be used at trial.