Poetry Hut Blog

Title: 14th Baseball in Literature and Culture Conference
Location: Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro
Link out: Click here
Description: Sponsored by the Department of English at Middle Tennessee State University, this conference focuses on the role of baseball in literature and culture. Presentations include papers from baseball scholars on a variety of topics including baseball and social issues, baseball and language, baseball in fiction and poetry, and baseball in drama.

Special Guests

Luncheon Speaker:
Jim “Mudcat” Grant, former major league pitcher, author, The Black Aces

Keynote Address:
Dr. Harriett Hamilton, Alabama A&M University
Date: March 27, 2010

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Autoposted from the Nashville Poetry Calendar

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• — WB Yeats and Sigmund Freud works posted on Wikipedia as copyright expires —
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• — A celebration of the great writers who died in the past decade —
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• — Rachel Wetzsteon, Poet of Keen Insights and Wit, Dies at 42 —
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• — PBS NewsHour : A profile of Russian poet Vera Pavlova, who will release her first collection of poems in English, “If There is Something to Desire,” next month. —
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• — Though the strategies of women writing in Ireland today are various, most avoid the lure of idyll. Campbell’s own cunning sideways take on the masculine pastoral has Mother Ireland as a furious farmer’s wife, while These Women is her tribute to the work-hardened women who “make happen the full wake, /the kettle hopping, the oven warm”. —
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• — W.H. Auden turns out to have been a huge fan of Lord of the Rings —
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• — A Scottish poet who killed himself after being rejected by a publisher is to be remembered on the 200th anniversary of his death. —
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• — The results of the 13th annual Mainichi Haiku Contest are in! —
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• — Co-created by Mike Hazard and Deb Wallwork, the half-hour film is a look at the mysterious Chinese poet Han Shan, or “Cold Mountain” (no one knows his birth name – he took the name of the place where he lived). —
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• — tag cloud for this blog sorry it disappeared when I changed servers/hosts and reinstalled this blog. I have a new post on my “affliction blog” too. —
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• — Poet James M. Nack was born 4 January 1809, and wrote a poem for New Year’s Day for his daughter Eveline —
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• — Connecticut Puts Out Call For New Poet Laureate —
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• — Lake Superior State University 2010 List of Banished Words —
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• — Amy Goodman: The poetic justice of poet Dennis Brutus —
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• — Author creates home for misfit words —
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• — “It’s fair to say that piracy of e-books is exploding,” said Albert Greco, an industry expert and professor of marketing at Fordham University. —
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• — There is no better way to get words on paper than letterpress,” Mr. Torosian said. “The beauty, the letter forms are so architectural and sculptural, they are so tangible,” —
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• — Running the small press section at Powell’s in Portland and running my own little press has put me in a position to see a lot of cool stuff from authors before anyone else has even heard of them. 2009 was no exception. Here are the highlights from my own personal reading list… —
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• — Is it time to revive the Christmas tradition of the chapbook? —
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• — To MFA or Not to MFA? —
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• — Obsessive Freak Abner Doubleday Forces Locals To Play Nonsensical Game —
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• — “….essays on Sylvia Plath and Material Culture. We’re still accepting submissions…” —
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• — The hymn-like metre combines with the Romantic, Keatsian image of the thrush to produce one of Hardy’s most lyrical poems —
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• — For Rumi, love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries and the animating force of creation —
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• — the next review submission deadline for Galatea Resurrects has been set at April 15, 2010. —
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• — kelsey letterpress (chattanooga) $450 —
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• — In her final installment of “In the Pursuit of Happiness,” Maira Kalman considers George Washington’s extraordinary life. —
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• — Tom Waits reads Charles Bukowski —
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• — For all those poets who died young of tuberculosis, alcoholism, drug abuse or suicide, there are many who aged gracefully and expired of old age. —
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• — the southern review seeks submissions from women poets —
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• — Small Publisher Finds Its Mission in Translation —
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• — On Reviewing: Ron Silliman [and a blogfull of other interviews about reviewing] —
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• — ypolita press is back! —
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• — DIAGRAM is fresh & congrats on turning 10. —
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• — Wallace Berman created a Beat poet’s version of Pop Art. —
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• — A Centennial Salute To Johnny Mercer —
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• — Although he felt his position as Poet Laureate cramped his creative style, Sir Andrew Motion, pictured, is now considering throwing his hat into the ring for the post of Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. —
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• — There are different kinds of sweat and tears—the hours spent on the particular poem and the hours spent in the reading and writing and thinking involved in learning the craft. Often long hours and days and weeks of work on a poem that never works out or comes to life precedes a poem that seems to come almost fully formed. —
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• — Saturday poem: Andrew Motion’s elegy for WG Sebald —
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• — A poet translates the Hebrew Bible in a contemporary idiom. —
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• — The idea is basically to publish a bi-monthly poetry newsletter highlighting new and recently published work by Michigan writers (or writers with connections to Michigan). —
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• — Angelique Irvin isn’t your typical defense contractor: she’s a suburban mom who swears by organic products, and the daughter of the founder of the literary journal Calyx (which was started in her childhood bedroom). —
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• — Recently he watched all 80 of the Chaplin movies and wrote a series of 106 haiku about them; this chapbook is a selection of 52 of these —
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• — haha —
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• — Poetry You Need To Read: Nin Andrews’ ‘Southern Comfort’ — Entertainment Weekly —
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• — Forgotten Authors No.45: Winifred Watso —
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• — Poetry: “Boys Born Zombie” —
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• — A grant will take poetry off the pages and put it in the paths of city residents and visitors. —
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• — MilSpeak: Warriors, Veterans, Family and Friends Writing the Military Experience New coupon code for the anthology eBook – NC64F. This code is good until Jan 31, 2011! Download a FREE copy of the anthology and help raise awareness about creative works by military people. Your action will also help to keep Milspeak Foundation programs free. You can also choose to pay for the book – the entire purchase price, less distributor cost, goes directly to Milspeak Foundation, a charitable organization that exists to serve those who serve.—
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• — The group’s third album, “London Calling,” which was released in the US on Jan. 5, 1980 — 30 years ago Tuesday — expanded the definition of punk rock, and brought music in general to new heights —
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• — Digital distractions hinder productivity, creativity, UW media expert says —
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• — Consider this Part II of Poetry Collections to come in 2010 —
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• — Weekly Poem: ‘Longing’ from NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS – Dennis Brutus was a South African poet and activist up until his death on Saturday at the age of 85 at his home in Cape Town. —
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• — Vic Chesnutt On Mountain Stage —
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• — Join Rafael & Brett-Candace as they talk to Afaa Michael Weaver http://www.afaamweaver.com/ In 1951, Afaa Michael Weaver (Michael S. Weaver) was born in Baltimore. He attended the Baltimore Public Schools, and at sixteen began studying at the University of Maryland in College Park as an engineering student. He left the university to begin his fifteen year career as a blue collar worker, which was his literary apprenticeship. During this time he wrote and published poetry, short fiction, and journalism. In addition, he founded 7th Son Press and the literary magazine Blind Alleys. From 1970-73, He served in the armed forces in the 342nd Army Security Agency as a reservist and received an honorable discharge. [mp3] —
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• — Living Writers – WCBN Ann Arbor: T Hetzel interviews Matthew Dickman [mp3] —
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• — Helen Losse is the author of Better With Friends, published by Rank Stranger Press in 2009 and the Poetry Editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. She has two chapbooks, Gathering the Broken Pieces and Paper Snowflakes. Her recent poetry publications and acceptances include The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Iodine Poetry Review, Blue Fifth Review, Heavy Bear, and Hobble Creek Review. She has poems in two anthologies: In the Arms of Words: Poems For Disaster Relief and Washing the Color of Water Golden: A Hurricane Katrina Anthology. Four of Losse’s poems were selected by NC Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer to be included with the works of two other poets in “August 21-27, 2006: A Bouquet of Poems by Winston-Salem Poets” on the website of the North Carolina Arts Council. Losse’s poem, “Four Snapshots of the Sea-Going Boats” won first place for poetry, 2009 Adult Writing Contest of the Davidson County (NC) Writer’s Guild. Educated at Missouri Southern State and Wake Forest Universities, Helen Losse lives in Winston-Salem, NC. She occasionally writes book reviews for various venues. [mp3] —
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• — Heather Derr-Smith was born in Dallas, Texas in 1971. She spent most of her childhood in Fredericksburg, Virginia. She received her undergraduate degree in Art History from the University of Virginia, where she also took poetry workshops with Charles Wright, Rita Dove, and Greg Orr. She went on to earn her M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her first book, entitled “Each End of the World”, was a collection of poetry about the war in Bosnia in the 1990’s and was published my Main Street Rag Press in 2005. Her second collection, entitled “The Bride Minaret” was published at University of Akron Press. [mp3] —
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I get a lot of unsolicited email from poetry publishers, lit mags, etc and I don’t have a problem with that but I am seeing a trend that is starting to bug me – there is no way to unsubscribe, or to know who the email is coming from, exactly, and so on.

Do you use email in your business? The CAN-SPAM Act

• — Worley Edits Book of Contemporary KY Poets —
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• — A poem begins for me with a feeling of being let close to the edge of something —
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• — An excellent diatribe —
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• — During my happy days working in the arts department of the Village Voice, I discovered this previously unknown letter by Marianne Moore in one of the paper’s earliest issues —
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• — Wondering what to buy for the bookworm who’s read everything? How about poetry? Santa Barbara poet laureate David Starkey shares his top 10 picks of recently released poetry collections —
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• — Marilyn Monroe film ’shows actress smoking marijuana’ —
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• — Literary Baseball T-Shirts “Selling Very Well” —
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• — Michael Boughn is seeking articles on poet-scholar John Clarke. —
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• — The Delirious Hem Advent Calendar is back, this year featuring audio! —
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• — A letter by Keats’s old friend makes clear how much “sensative-bitterness” the poet felt after attacks on him by critics —
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• — Invisible Sisters: A Memoir is a “Best of Atlanta 2009 Must Read!” —
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• — More companies, including McDonald’s, are being moved to verse to advertise their products. Is this a welcome development? —
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• — Podcast: Andrew O’Hagan on Samuel Johnson [mp3] —
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• — I can’t believe Sonny Eliot is still doing the weather in Detroit yay [mp3] —
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• — His literary influences include such American modernists as Wallace Stevens, John Ashberry, Charles Bernstein, and poets of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry school. Words (P=A=L=A=B=R=A=S?) come first in his writing; he is always looking to break through the sound barriers of convention. —
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• — Annie Finch traces the evolution of the sonnet —
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• — Trivia Question of the Day : Category-Literature —
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• — Although he has had five books published–two novels, a book of stories and two books of poems, Tao Lin is not yet thirty. Yet, for all his industriousness, his work expresses the apathy and emptiness felt by many members of his generation… [mp3] —
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• — An 1827 first edition copy of poems by Edgar Allan Poe sold for $662,500 on Friday setting a record for a 19th century book of poetry, said a spokeswoman for Christie’s auction house. —
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• — In 1947, a gal named Barbara Ehrhart chose to create her wedding dress out of turkey feathers —
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• — Terese Svoboda Interviews Heartsrevolution —
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• — One could cite other essays that make Stevens’s case for poetry, but the real question is: How well does his own poetry measure up to his ideal? After all, the telling phrase in the opening line of the invocation to “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction” is “except for you.” Since the “you” refers to the creative faculty of the mind, it excludes everything else, including, of course, people. —
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• — Volume 3 number 3 HOW2 —
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• — Cate Marvin, the current writer-in-residence at the Stonington apartment of the late poet James Merrill, feeds her 10-month-old daughter Lucia, in the Eastern-domed dining room at the table where Merrill and his lover did their Ouija board experiments. —
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• — Hugh MacDonald, a poet, editor and novelist from Brudenell, P.E.I., was announced as the new poet laureate for the province on Friday. —
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• — Neither the arrest of his parents, nor his difficult childhood and adolescence, nor the equally difficult years he spent in exile abroad could destroy that passion for freedom and joie de vivre. To quote his friend and contemporary, the poetess Bella Akhmadulina, those emotions permeated every breath Aksyonov took. —
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• — album of ambient/poetry reading with some Tsvetaeva —
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• — A T.O. poet-essayist ponders Old and New World literature on a century of slaughter —
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• — Professors of creative writing Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover won the prestigious 2009 PEN USA translation award for “Selected Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin.” —
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• — I think of him as an Irish aboriginal, the mind diamond sharp and of the now, in the flickering dreamlight of a forest clearing —
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• — The statement said that the museum “deeply regretted” that some of the poets who participated in the last reading, on Nov. 21, had received “hate mail.” —
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• — Are there nonfiction authors—or any type of author—who are so great to read, you would read anything they wrote? —
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• — ejunto is a 501(c)(3) Not-For-Profit Corporation dedicated to bringing quality audiobooks to the public domain. —
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• — Wordsworth’s Minster mystery —
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• — Two Minnesota-produced films — on Allen Ginsberg and the Runaways — will get prestigious Sundance Festival premieres. —
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• — What is the future of Lit Journals? —
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• — The aging master, all too aware of the shadow obscuring our sight of things and aware of the encroaching darkness as well, can still ponder what is on the other side of night and still be lucent, thank goodness, about the great benefit of living —
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This poem draft of “The Reanimation of Ted Williams’ Frozen Head has gotten a lot of traffic from people searching for Ted Williams Frozen Head or Ted Williams Frozen Head jokes etc.

Then I noticed this in my RSS feed of the (newly reanimated itself) Weekly World News: According to a new book, Ted Williams’ frozen head was abused by facility staff!. So I guess the author has been stirring up publicity. It’s not a fake article: Chicago Sun Times

ps

Dear Weekly World News;

Which of these headlines is more Weekly World Newsish?

Yours: According to a new book, Ted Williams’ frozen head was abused by facility staff!

The Chicago Sun Times: Ted Williams’ frozen head used for batting practice, says new book

I’m glad you’re back but you can do better! The Chicago Sun Times kicked your butt! You can do it!

• — This poem by one Tom Clark descended on me from the heavens, like an omen presented by some ancient Greek god or goddess. Well actually, I saw it on the sidebar of Tampa outfielder Fernando Perez’s recent essay for the Poetry Foundation. [when I was on hiatus pitchers and poets chose one of the poems from my baseball poem chapbook -- pdf -- as poem of the week thank you] —
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• — The life of a poet in New York means recognizing the important appellations and knowing when to take the (grant) money and run. DANIEL NESTER recalls life before leaving—
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• — Real Bird will work to bring poetry to life. —
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• — A RECLUSIVE Poole poet who died alone has been mourned across the globe by an online community now fighting to preserve her legacy.. —
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• — The 2009 Ig Nobels. —
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• — When Your Writing Sucks. —
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• — Handicapping the Nobel Prizes. —
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• — obscure poets: suzette haden elgin. —
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• — Teenage Plath writing & artwork acquired by the Lilly Library. —
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• — Some know him for his poetry, or his translations of poetry, or his work against the Vietnam War, or the audacious literary magazine. —
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• — Committee to host 75th birthday celebration for literary giant …. —
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• — What we wiseacres need to heed, though, is probably this rule: Ask not what you can do for this book, only what it can do for you.. —
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• — Cerise Press is a new international online literary journal. —
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• — a significant portion of a feature article on Craigslist (Gary Wolf’s “Why Craigslist is Such a Mess”) was given over to the poetry that has become part of the warp and woof of what is now the world’s largest classified section.. —
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• — Learning to love poetry again. —
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• — The first image gives you the size differences in each decimal place and the second image groups the poem in detail so that it is readable.. —
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• — EDGAR A. POE.; A SAN FRANCISCAN ADDS ONE MORE QUEER STORY TO THE INNUMERABLE NUMBER ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF “THE RAVEN.” September 10, 1878, —
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• — Five Arab Poets Online —
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• — Only at the Beat Museum will you find an emergency exit warning you that an alarm “will HOWL” if the door is opened —
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• — Strong shortlist hailed for Forward poetry prize —
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• — Boyhood Home Of Langston Hughes Sold In Foreclosure —
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• — For the second year in a row, Nashville’s Tomato Art Fest plays host to the hottest, rowdiest haiku contest in the South. —
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• — Hendrix murder theory ‘plausible’ —
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• — Longtime Louisianian Julie Kane, formerly of New Orleans, now of Natchitoches, has explored her home state in such volumes as “Rhythm and Booze,” “Body and Soul” and now, “Jazz Funeral,” winner of the Donald Justice Prize sponsored by the Iris N. Spencer Poetry Awards —
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• — NPR On Point Wednesday, July 22, 2009 ‘Mad, Bad’ Byron —
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• — Chicago Cubs Haiku —
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• — Monasterevin gears up for 22nd Gerard Manley Hopkins festival —
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• — A study highlights the need for a new approach to the teaching of English pronunciation given that English is now a lingua franca, with more non-native speakers in the world than native speakers. —
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• — Keats’s London home reopens after major refurbishment —
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• — Each week Carol Ann selects a verse for women and discusses its meaning: ‘Mrs’ By Gail Ashton —
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• — The fourth issue of this online journal of Fibonacci poetry is now up and available —
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• — ploughshares edited by jean valentine —
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• — MATTHEW ARNOLD. February 17, 1884, Wednesday —
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• — Sue Sinclair and Ronna Bloom have both been nominees for the Pat Lowther Award (given to the best first book of poetry by a Canadian woman), both have just released their fourth collections, and both apply their muses to the philosophical-in-the-personal —
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• — Empress’s poetic pursuits impress translator —
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• — Nowadays, there’s always the quip, ‘Why do we sing, take me out to the ball game, when we’re already there?’ This has a classic Tin Pan Alley song structure of verse-and-chorus, verse-and-chorus, and you never hear the verses. —
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• — Linda Gregg: Essential American Poets [mp3] —
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• — Christopher Buckley, professor of creative writing at UC Riverside, has won the 2009 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry —
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• — National Art Hate Week needs you —
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• — Poetry in America is in crisis. It is irrelevant because it has lost its capacity to put a name to what is wrong, to blame squarely the perpetrators, to witness what is real, to not shy away from what is tragic, what is ruined, what is bereft of value and spiritually corrosive. —
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• — Dharma Poetry: Anne Waldman —
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• — Yemeni poets behind Gitmo’s bars —
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• — Adrienne Rich studies the space between art and politics in new collection of essays —
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• — Discover poetry @ ALA Annual Conference —
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• — It’s official: A Murmuration of Starlings is the winner of the 2009 Colorado Book Award in Poetry, given by the Colorado Center for the Book. —
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• — Famous Quotes: democracy vs plutocracy —
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• — Weekly Poem: ‘Graffiti’ from Poetry | NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS [mp3] —
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• — Former U.S. Poet Laureate: The U.S. needs better poets —
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• — “Poets aren’t recession-proof,” said Tom Cassidy, who supports his “poetry addiction” with a full-time job —
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• — In the second of our walks, we explore the towns and countryside beloved by the iconic Welsh poet Dylan Thomas —
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• — The idea is simple: write a short poem involving both dogs and physics in one of the usual short verse forms (haiku, limerick, double dactyl, whatever, as long as it has some sort of rhyme and meter). —
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• — The spirit of Hughes and Plath is alive in West Yorkshire —
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• — Translated By with Shaindel Beers: Shaindel will interview A. M. Juster, translator of The Satires of Horace. [mp3] —
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• — An Appreciation of Ai —
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• — New research from Vanderbilt University indicates the way our brain handles how we move through space–including being able to imagine literally stepping into someone else’s shoes–may be related to how and why we experience empathy toward others —
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• — The public has been stirred by the scandal related to translator Dao Kim Hoa, a member of the Vietnam Writers’ Association, who has reportedly stole some poems by poets Huu Thinh and Lo Ngan Sun. Hoa said that it is a misunderstanding. —
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• — How frequently do I get “exciting” submissions? More frequently than I thought I would. —
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• — Publisher says it was a mistake to offer gift cards to those who would give top ratings on Amazon or Barnes & Noble to a new textbook. —
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• — Baseball has become unruly By Hunter S. Thompson —
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• — One video features Divine Comedy imagery while the other features imagery from the Biblia Sacra (Sacred Bible); all of the artwork comes from the Park West Dali Collection. The videos give viewers an opportunity to enjoy Dali artwork in a unique way; the works are shown one after the other, each one seemingly morphing into the next, all set to music that perfectly complements the imagery. —
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• — ‘Dante’s Inferno’ (PS3/X360) – 12 New Screens —
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• — Poet Elizabeth Alexander, DJ Spooky to honor NAACP with new works —
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• — Corso: The Last Beat — Film Review —
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• — MS Won’t Stop Exene Cervenka —
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• — Novelists such as Salman Rushdie and Italy’s Umberto Eco, as well as Nobel laureates in literature including Irish poet Seamus Heaney have also campaigned for him to be set free. —
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I forgot: yesterday was Anna Akhmatova’s birthday. This is a Lomonosov cup and saucer I got on Ebay shortly after they launched as Ebay.



Haven’t found out anything about it, since then, really. That photo doesn’t do it justice, because the rest of it is just gorgeous & the saucer is too. If you click on the picture you can see a bigger one.

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• — Poet cornered: Ruth Padel fights to keep Oxford post over tip-offs about her rival and A male poet wouldn’t have been blamed for rough tactics: Ruthless power plays in academia are as common as good wine and Oxford’s top poet urged to quit for sex slurs against literary rival —
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• — It measures, perhaps, the success of New Formalism’s self-serving argument that writing in meter is difficult that Joel Brouwer (“Poetry Chronicle,” April 26) should be astonished to the point of italics at the news that J. D. McClatchy spoke an iambic pentameter line in his sleep. —
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• — Why do women defend Walcott? —
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• — BBC plans to send poet to Afghanistan battlefields —
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• — Litterbug released after 4 years in jail —
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• — The lousy economy might be bad for artists when it comes to paying rent, but after a decade of record prices — and what some might call wretched excess — it might actually be good for art. —
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• — Film Made About Rebellious Chilean Poetess and —
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• — Wee row erupts over old Robbie: Town resists call to remove statue —
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• — Sunday Poetry for the New Moon Jupiter/Chiron/Neptune conjunction —
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• — Poet’s Choice by Paul Otremba: ‘In an Adirondack With You’ by Paul Otremba —
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• — Frederick Seidel has spent the last half-century being the darkest and strangest sort of poet. —
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• — People By Nature Are Universally Optimistic, Study Shows —
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• — A few years ago I used baseball as a metaphor to lament the lack of an amateur/professional split within the poetry world: no one thinks they have to be a major leaguer to have fun taking hacks at the batting cage, but for some reason the idea of being an amateur poet and having fun in the same way with words strikes us as embarrassing. —
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• — French artist Bernard Pras (scroll for biography) arranges everyday objects, then photographs them at such an angle as to recreate iconic portraits and artworks. —
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• — APSU literature professor to read his work in Nashville —
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• — So, just to be clear, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as we have come to call it, is an untitled poem written by an unknown author in about 1400. It is 2,530 lines long and written in Middle English. —
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• — Two engaging books in distinct styles and voices — clearly from male and female perspectives — experience our shared world, but translate it through individual visions worthy of a wide readership. —
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• — Ros, who died in 1939, abused (some would say, tortured) the English language in three novels and dozens of poems. you can read some poems here —
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• — Campbell McGrath’s anti-Tweet —
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• — Doomed to neglect were any films the jury doubtless deemed too conventional and/or too warm. These included “Bright Star,” Jane Campion’s exceptionally intimate and restrained examination of the tragic romance of poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, and “Looking for Eric,” a genial change-of-pace for British director Ken Loach. —
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• — The National Library of New Zealand is seeking nominations for the 2009-2011 New Zealand Poet Laureate Award. —
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• — Poets of the Central Committee of the Writers Union of Korea produced more than 100 poems and words of songs encouraging the army and people by conducting dynamic creative activities in the seething reality. —
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• — Computer scientist to ‘unroll’ papyrus scrolls buried by Vesuvius —
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• — Rafael Escalona, 81, Folk Musician and Balladeer of Colombia, Is Dead —
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• — The Futurists: masters of outrage who embraced the new —
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• — Peter Sacks finds common themes between the paintings of Edward Hopper and the works of poets such as Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and TS Eliot. [mp3] —
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• — Researchers mine millions of metaphors through computer-based techniques —
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• — Joe Milford Show: John Poch is poetry editor of the journal 32 Poems. His first book, Poems (Orchises Press), appeared in 2004. His work has appeared in many journals, and in 2004, he was a Howard Nemerov Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He teaches at Texas Tech University. —
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• — Conferences, Festivals Taking a Hit —
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• — The Jane Crown Show: Lyn Lifshin —
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• — “If the occupation is afraid of a literature festival,” he said, addressing the elephant in the room of literature buffs and the culturally inclined, “than they are very fragile indeed.” —
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• — In this essay Gary muses on how a poem or in
  this case how a poem fragment works, complete with excellent illustrations. —
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• — How did you and your publishers decide that now was the time for your “Collected Poems”? —
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• — The end of an era in American letters —
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• — Recently, I’ve been reading through Jim Elledge’s Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock & Roll in American Poetry.” —
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• — Anna Journey’s first book of poems, “If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting” (University of Georgia Press: 104 pp., $16.95 paper), is a deeply American debut —
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Have you noticed lately that people are acting ugly all of a sudden out of the blue? I’m not sure what to make of it. Maybe I’m just being in the wrong time at the wrong place.

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Sylvia Plath poem, November 1950 Seventeen Magazine.

Another old Ebay find. {PDF file.}

Actual magazine is on its way to the Plath collection at the Lilly Library in Bloomington. (Thanks to Anne Haines for suggesting it a long time ago.)

If there are any copyright objections I’ll remove the PDF file.

Here’s today’s news:

• — “Perhaps the most refreshingly honest set of guidelines I’ve ever read.” —
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• — George Harrison’s teenage angst… —
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• — Grand Rapids poetry therapist harnesses the power of words —
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• — Almost all his life Jack Kerouac played a fantasy baseball game of his own invention, a hobby that even close friends and fellow Beats never knew about.
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• — fallen idols: Walcott joins Shelley and Byron —
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• — Recommended Summer Reading – Evie Shockley —
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• — Scarred For Life. Physically, Not So Much Mentally —
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• — Christopher Ricks speaks with Giles Harvey about Posthumous Keats, Stanley Plumly’s recent biography of John Keats, and about the poet’s death and his idealized “immediate afterlife.” [mp3] —
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• — 20th Annual Independent Press Award Winners Announced —
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• — The Shakespeare Sonnets, from 1 to 154 – the full links —
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• — First a filly wins the Preakness, and now, a 301-year male only streak is broken with the appointment of Ruth Padel as the new Oxford professor of poetry, the first woman to hold the post since it was established in 1708. —
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• — Wordplay, May 17: Robin Blaser [mp3] —
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• — This is something new in the life of poetry, and I’m excited to be part of it and to see where it may take us. —
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• — Poet incenses police —
• — Yet Bang was nearly 48 years old before a career in writing and teaching poetry came into focus and she enrolled in a master of fine arts program at Columbia University in New York —
• — It’s published by Five Points Press of Athens, Ga. It’s a collection of short stories and poems, but it’s about my life in baseball and growing up. —
• — As hope returns, Ms. Greenberg’s mantra comes from Milton’s sonnet — “they also serve who only stand and wait.” —
• — But as far as “revolutionizing online literature” goes–as their heated opening manifesto has it–we are not haters. —
• — A Dorchester poet who used her writing skills to cope with a series of miscarriages has just won New Women’s Voices Prize in Poetry from Finishing Line Press for “Hawk Weather,” her first poetry chapbook. —
• — A book on the future of tiny pots of fromage frais has been crowned as having the strangest title of the year —
• — Catching up with Howard Junker —
• — Saudi Woman Places 4th In TV Poetry Contest —




• — BBC War correspondent Jonathan Charles finds out about the poetry being written as a result of the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. —

• — The Pulse’s Stephanie Smith interviewed four of the writers who will be attending this year’s conference: playwright Marco Ramirez, essayist Sam Pickering, poet/critic Wyatt Prunty, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Henley —
• — “The real essence of poetry comes before the words. So it’s something unthinkable, but it’s feel-able, you feel it,” McKinney said. —
• — It is the pots-and-pans “homeliness”, the always contemporary and “unpoeticized” quality of Pushkin’s verse, that Stanley Mitchell aims to preserve in his translation, which supersedes Charles Johnston’s influential version —
• — Welty home added to Southern Literary Trail —
• — Doom (AKA MF Doom, AKA Daniel Dumile) has a secret weapon on his new album, previously untapped in the annals of hip hop — the poetry of Charles Bukowski. —
• — Tim Appelo talks to Brian Culhane, winner of the 2007 Emily Dickinson First Book Award for a poet over the age of 50. —
• — etsy chapbooks from dancing girl press —
• — UK poet laureate swears off ‘no-good poems’ —
• — National League Central 2009 Haiku Forecasts —