Poetry News:

1. — September, 1918 by Amy Lowell —
2. — Hundreds of small, independent publishers will have easier access to digital book technology under a new service offered by Perseus Books Group. —
3. — Nationally known author to serve as Roy Acuff chair at Austin Peay —
4. — Poet’s rhyming riposte leaves Mrs Schofield ‘gobsmacked’ —
5. — Baltimore Has Poe; Philadelphia Wants Him —
6. — “The result is greater than the sum of the three individual parts - painting, poetry, and calligraphy.” —
7. — For the July installment of the National Constitution Center’s Legacy of 1808 series, three accomplished writers join us for a conversation examining slavery through fiction and scholarship. [mp3] —

I thought Canada was supposed to be more liberal about marijuana? Or is that just the W Coast?

Poetry News:

1. — You’re saying to the world, this is how I want to be read, this is how I want to be seen, and those are hard decisions to make —
2. — Poetry in Motion, Thanks to YouTube —
3. — The 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded Friday evening, April 25, 2008, at UCLA’s Royce Hall —
4. — Manitoba Authors Honoured at Manitoba Book Awards —
5. — Gioia’s Poetry Set to Music as Hudson Review Turns 60 —
6. — It’s time for difficult writing to step up —
7. — Elegy for a Scarred Shoulder will debut May 1, 2008 at free reading and booksigning at 7:00 pm in Kalman Auditorium at Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center, 18101 Oakwood Blvd in Dearborn, Michigan —
8. — A Spring Bouquet of Poetry —
9. — Nuyorican Poets Cafe celebrates 35 years of odes —
10. — He currently writes for the New York Review of Books and is Poetry Editor of the Paris Review. He answered your questions on the state of poetry today. [links to MP3] —
11. — Fifteen months in India in the early 1960s had a lasting influence on Allen Ginsberg. —
12. — The metrical pattern, with its short, tumbling line, is sometimes known as “skeltonics” —
13. — Groundbreaking Book: Ariel, by Sylvia Plath —
14. — Cinderella Schools for Writers —
15. — Former beat movement member Gary Snyder wins $100,000 poetry prize —

Twelve Suggestions for Dealing with the Tibetan Situation, by Some Chinese Intellectuals

Ach, my appt at the pain clinic got moved back a week, due to a conference. You’d think a pain clinic consultation would be zippy.

How to be a jerk
1. Read a lukewarm review of your book on Amazon.
2. Explain to reader how she is mistaken.
3. Encourage deletion of reader’s review.
4. Have friends / fellow authors harass reviewer?
5. Have Private Investigator dig up personal information on reviewer. (?!)
6. There is no #6.
7. Amazon bans the reviewer.
8. Profit?
(there’s a boycott amazon group at Facebook BTW.)
And Writers call for 1 May Amazon, eBay boycott
…RSS feed backlog.

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.

Poetry News:

1. — Catherine Breese Davis wrote of loss, abandonment, destitution, despair and decrepitude—and she knew what she was talking about —
2. — Between Poetry and Performance, a Film Finds a Rocker’s Heart —
3. — A Voice Poetry Roundup: From half-baked utopias to diabetic bitches —
4. — But if no one likes to read poetry — or so it can often seem to the discouraged poet — then putting poems in hotel nightstands or on subway cars only multiplies the public’s opportunities to ignore them —
5. — Not for Li-Young Lee are the darker recesses of poetry, the bleak places where the soul loses its way and succumbs to hopelessness —
6. — In his new book The Watchmaker’s Table, Nova Scotia poet Brian Bartlett proves that time is not, in fact, linear —
7. — Amazon policy change threatens small publishers —

It’s now time to cast your votes for the 2008 Poet Laureate of The Blogosphere

Poetry News:

1. — Thanks to poetry, X=imagine the possibilities —
2. — Salt To Expand Its Stable Of Free Online Literary Magazines —
3. — His meteoric poetic output began with his first professionally published poem at 16, but by 20 he stopped writing poetry and would later declare of his work: “All of that was just pig swill.” —
4. — Bookstore and poet in war of words over reading —
5. — The work of American poet George Oppen is not widely known to a general audience, but some scholars at the University at Buffalo think it should be —
6. — Reading can generate as much of a hit as writing, says poet and author Edward Hirsch on today’s episode of Titlepage.tv —

Poetry News:

1. — We are each a bundle of nervous impulses: to fidget, to gossip, to be distracted, to inquire, and especially to satisfy our scalding curiosity by looking at anything we’re told not to look at —
2. — Big is still best but not everything Americans do is supersized - a rich tradition of shorter verse percolates through to us today —
3. — Palestinian-American doctor turns suffering into song, wins top U.S. prize and a book review —
4. — Listen again: BBC censors Auden quip —
5. — The Economics Of Self-Publishing —
6. — National Poetry Award to go to VT and UVA professors —
7. — The author of three collections, Brock-Broido has been praised for poems that are “gorgeous and mournful, ornate and deeply felt” —

And the hits keep coming … hubby laid off from his 5 night a week gig at the swanky place. I guess people aren’t being swanky as much these days.

Poetry News:

1. — I think that you have to go on your nerve—that’s something Frank O’Hara used to say —
2. — Most critics thought the young Barker a better poet than the young Thomas, and the latter, who called his rival’s poems “masturbatory monologues”, seems to have been madly jealous —
3. — Definition of poetry splits the literati —
4. — The Victorian poet William Barnes proposed wheelsaddle as an alternative to bicycle, and in the same vein suggested painlore, folkwain and nipperlings in lieu of pathology, omnibus and forceps —
5. — Collected here are poems from 59 countries and territories spanning Asia and the widest definition of the Asian diaspora —
6. — Blake Morrison celebrates livres d’artistes, texts have been cut open, painted over, burnt and locked up by the likes of Matisse and Hirst —
7. — Q&A with California Poet Laureate Al Young —
8. — WILD NIGHTS! Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway —

Important net neutrality developments.

My 6 word story - thanks Thierry Brunet.

…catching up.

Poetry News:

1. — How to trivialise women’s poetry —
2. — elitism is a laughable charge to levy against an art that doesn’t require tickets or a premium cable subscription —
3. — The antipoem’s burlesque charm hits like a nightstick —
4. — An interview with poet Mary Jo Salter —
5. — And I may say, perhaps, I’m happier writing about doctors than I would have been being one —
6. — If we could just do one or the other, we wouldn’t suffer such inner twists as bitter poems require, and there might not be so many nasty songs and poems —

Some favorite searches that lead people to this blog recently:
“I can’t stand Maya Angelou’s poetry”
“Sex Sex Sexton”

I find this rhetoric blog very entertaining.

Poetry News:

1. — The sonnet is a frequently misunderstood form with an enduring appeal. Fancy having a crack at your own ‘little song’? —
2. — it also cements her reputation as the greatest poet of her generation —
3. — This sense of freedom is produced by Ashbery’s diction (no American poet has had a larger, more diverse vocabulary, not Whitman, not Pound) as well as his formal choices. —
4. — Sometimes the hothouse of a partnership fosters frustration and magnifies our tiniest faults —
5. — Dylan Thomas revival proves death has no dominion —
6. — Crozier realised that with a sensibility as English as his own, he couldn’t create a postscript to Black Mountain, so he left America and came home —
7. — Wash. adviser fired for helping underground paper regains job —

Poetry News:

1. — It may be argued, then, that Plath’s “lasting achievement” was her ability to combine the personal and the mythical in her poetry, thereby endowing this with a timeless and “relevant” literary effect —
2. — A Russian Poet Unpeels Her Many Lives —
3. — Rare Emily Dickinson photo(?) purchased on Ebay —
4. — Intelligence And Rhythmic Accuracy Go Hand In Hand —
5. — Poetry workshop: Forward prize winner Matthew Francis invites readers to conjure sense impressions with metaphor and simile —
6. — In Paris in the 1930s he helped found the journal Black Student, which gave birth to the idea of “negritude,” a call to blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage —
7. — World-famous filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami is convinced that one of the problems Iranians encounter in understanding poetry is that they pay too much attention to rhythm —
8. — The Pulitzer jurists for this year’s poetry prize evidently felt the pain of Philip Schultz —
9. — Frequently asked questions about the business of verse By Robert Pinsky —

I have torn labrum in my hip & a cane now. I can do this. I just had to be freaked out for a while. I finally got an appt to the pain clinic & that is making me feel better — OK there are some tools and stuff out there.

I feel full of gristle.

edit: p.s. laughing is good.

Poetry News:

1. — Unfortunately, poetry in general has a bad reputation —
2. — new lit mag alert —
3. — The Griffin Poetry Prize Announces the 2008 Canadian and International Shortlist —
4. — She did say, though, that her interest in cryptography, the study of coded writing, influenced her poems, along with her love of puzzles —
5. — Never has so much genius,” he wrote, “been combined with so little talent.” I never heard that one before, hahaha.—
6. — Taking the Pain Out of Poetry —
7. — Tracking Olympic Torch Relay, PEN Poem Relay lands in North America —
8. — Next on American Experience - Walt Whitman, Airing April 14, 2008 —

If you are doing NaPoWriMo, there are some writing prompts here

Geez you guys are stingy with the ad clicks, LOL:

I’ve tried to promote poetry as best I know how, but I need to close for a while. (It hasn’t anything to do with adverti$ing pittances.) Have a good remainder of the National Poetry Month. I love you, poets!

Poetry News:

1. — A translator from many tongues, she loves a pun, even when mourning a dead pooch —
2. — Atlanta Sings of Poems Electric, Past and Present —
3. — What We Miss if We Pass on Poetry (Hint: Not Poems) —
4. — Langston Hughes, 1902-1967: The Poet Voice of African-Americans —
5. — Houston poet wins $50,000 award —
6. — Reed Whittemore, Handyman to the Muse: Influential Poet Writes the Work of His Life —

Poetry News:

1. — Some poems seem inaccessible. But when one resonates, it changes our perceptions.
   —
2. — Poet Cathy Smith Bowers has made a career of nudging writers along —
3. — An icon sees poetic justice — and a conspiracy —
4. — Fairfield U offers new MFA in writing —
5. — An interview with poet Jorie Graham —
6. — Writers awarded Stegner Fellowships —

Nikki Giovanni at TSU today has been rescheduled, TBA.

Poetry News:

1. — We cannot be caged by the moment of dying; in dying we are, in effect, set free, even if oblivious —
2. — Clarke named Wales national poet —
3. — Amazon Does Damage Control On Its Print-On-Demand Demands
4. — Elementary students mix poetry, basketball —
5. — UGA’s Judith Ortiz-Cofer: A Poet Of Many Places —
6. — The Boston-born poet and one-time protegé of Andy Warhol, Rene Ricard, 65, has released four volumes of poetry and held numerous exhibitions —

2nd Annual
Spring Southeastern Literary Magazine & Small Press Festival

April 23rd-26th, 2008
UNC Greensboro - Greensboro, NC
more