Poetry News:

1. — Tasha Tudor, 92 —
2. — From Verse to Controversy — And Fleeting Fame —
3. — One of the liberties that poetry takes, and that prose can’t, is temporarily to break up or interrupt a sentence with a line ending —
4. — On the contrary, Lowell had mastered that style so completely that he had exhausted its possibilities —
5. — One of the hardest subjects to treat in verse, armed conflict has a diverse history in poetry. How would you tackle the subject? —
6. — Poetry Off the Shelf Podcast Listening to Grace Paley read her poems. [mp3] —
7. — Wright’s emphasis on bearing witness, on counting and recounting victims, and calling the powerful to account, makes up one crucial aspect of her project, and calls to mind the work of 20th-century activist poets like Kenneth Fearing, Langston Hughes and Muriel Rukeyser —

Poetry News:

1. — With this collection, Grace Paley ends as she began, as a poet. —
2. — Lynn Neary speaks with Nigel McLoughlin about his poetry and the Northern Ireland peace process —
3. — English-language poets are increasingly fascinated with the syllabic forms of Latin, Romance languages and Japanese. Can you write a good syllabic poem? —
4. — A poem written by an imprisoned Chinese journalist is following the Olympic torch around the globe. —
5. — For the past three years, a half-dozen handsome new books of poetry have been sent into the world annually by a new Seattle publisher —
6. — The banana of God —
7. — Take my book. It’s free. —
8. — Prince of nerves and manners, precise poet of desolations and furies —
9. — Jorie Graham’s latest poems focus on the possibility of ecological disaster. —

Poetry News:

1. — If birds come from something as bizarre as a smooth ovoid container with no exit or entry, then it’s not too far of a stretch to imagine that the backbone of a corpse becomes a snake —
2. — WordPlay - WPVM: Celebrating Jonathan Williams [links to MP3] —
3. — 2008 National Magazine Award Finalists —
4. — Interview with poet Mark Doty:A poet who goes from “Fire to Fire” & Mark Doty Video at Split This Rock —
5. — Editors Kathryn Stripling Byer and Marilyn Kallet gathered contributions from 52 female writers —
6. — Posthumously published, these poems by one of the great masters of the short story deal largely with aging and death —
7. — The sense of unknowing you feel at the end of a poem is not something you get and then get over. —
8. — Bishop’s poetry takes up about the first third of this Library of America volume; the rest is prose of varying kinds and interest — fiction and memoir, travel and literary pieces, translations and correspondence, some published for the first time —

Lest you think I’m not an idiot, I am. Before I even got my MFA I sent a poetry manuscript out to poetry contests. Even now that I’m wised up about poetry contests, there are some presses that I really like so I enter to support them (NMP’s chapbook contest deadline is coming up FYI). So yeah, I’m a hypocrite.

Thursday I’m meeting with the folks at the Vanderbilt Division of Medical Genetics. Wish me luck. I don’t know what to expect, though I know where they will be heading. Unfortunately, I’m in a lot of pain these days & didn’t help things when I slipped Saturday & fcked up my r. hip. Note to self: do not taunt Pluto.

Poetry News:

1. — The poet who may be prime minister —
2. — I still begin with the particular, and hope to arrive at the universal —
3. — Her husband, the poet Osip Mandelstam, wrote a famous epigram about the great leader, for which he met an early death —
4. — Vehicle of literary endeavour —
5. — With breakneck pacing he packed all of life and death into scintillating, transcendent incantations —
6. — Grace Paley’s poems read nicely as first thoughts, as impressions in a journal, a pause on an afternoon stroll —

Poetry News:

1. — The Happy Endings Foundation hoax —
2. — Vendor of verse: It’s personal at NYC street ‘poem shop’ —
3. — “Poetry arises out of a mind that feels itself in some way to be cracked” —
4. — Editorial: A Muse Unplugged —
5. — In three books, over eight years, Matthea Harvey has moved to the front of the pack of interesting poets writing in English —
6. — New Tay disaster: William McGonagall faces challenge to title of world’s worst poet —
7. — Greeks Go for All the Marbles In Effort to Get Back Artifacts —
8. — A monument to the outstanding poet Joseph Brodsky will be set up nearby the American Embassy —
9. — Former state poet laureate Grace Paley was remembered in a memorial service —

– Physics Nobel winner(s) will be announced today. This link’ll probably tell you the winners.

– Your cabbage: now with 100% more anti-depressants and oral contraceptives.

– Ron Paul was in Nashville this weekend & I attended. He seems like the only antidote to this, to me. I think our Constitutional Republic has been replaced by a corporate-controlled oligarchy. There are a bunch of videos of the rally at You Tube.

Poetry News:

1. — MtvU, the subsidiary of MTV Networks that is broadcast only on college campuses, will announce today that it has selected its first poet laureate —
2. — a poem that considers explicitly the relation between old ways and new generations —
3. — Meet the many famous poets of modern America —
4. — The area is best known, of course, because of “Spoon River Anthology” —
5. — The poems touch on the ideas of confusion and remembering, as well as anecdotes about the past —
6. — Verse flowed from dying poet —
7. — The distinctive voices of Gilbert, Gregg retain their strength —
8. — Hillman’s poetry: Think jazz —
9. — Poetry magazine’s editor rediscovers his spirituality and his voice —
10. — Hopkins and the dark night —
11. — How an Englishman in Somerville is becoming the most feared man in American letters —
12. — “here’s a [Grace Paley] poem I’ve had up for years on my bulletin board” —
13. — A father reflects on his Pulitzer-winning daughter [may require bug me not] —

Total Lunar Eclipse to Occur on Tuesday and the astrological implications if you are so inclined.

Poetry Hut Blog and WhimsyLand are blog twins.

Poetry News:

1. — Poet and short story writer Grace Paley, a literary eminence and old-fashioned rebel who described herself as a “combative pacifist,” has died (and NYT) —
2. — Fatwa offers unlimited money to kill Taslima —
3. — Remembering Liam Rector —
4. — Out of this has come a small industry in creative writing courses —
5. — We Need Models of Revision —
6. — four impressive new collections —
7. — Langston Hughes was one of the most respected poets in 20th century American literature, though you”™d never know it from Isaac Julien‘ pretentious and monotonous 40-minute hodgepodge —
8. — the similarities and differences between the “New Gen” poets [of the U.K.] and their U.S. contemporaries —
9. — Until yesterday, Deboer was one of just two independent distributors operating on the East Coast —

“The next Powerball drawing will be on Saturday, August 25th, 2007 with an estimated Grand Prize of $300,000,000 ($140,300,000 cash).”

Michael G. generously posted some gazpacho recipes in the comments of yesterday’s post. Sounds great — I will be eating that all weekend I think. Over 100F yesterday again.

Sweet baby carrots recalled in six states

FDA officials said the carrots might be contaminated with bacteria (Shigella) that poses a serious health risk from some people, especially the very young or elderly.

The product was sold under two labels — “Los Angeles Salad Genuine Sweet Baby Carrots” and “Trader Joe’s Genuine Sweet Baby Carrots.”

The “Los Angeles Salad Genuine Sweet Baby Carrots” label was distributed by Kroger Co. and King Sooper stores in Tennessee, Kroger Co. and Ralph’s supermarkets in California, Publix supermarkets in Georgia and Florida, and Get Fresh stores in Nevada.

All of the packages were sold in flexible plastic bags in 7- and 8-ounce sizes with a “sell by date” up to and including Aug. 16.

The second label — “Trader Joe’s Genuine Sweet Baby Carrots” — was distributed by Trader Joe’s stores in Arizona and California in 7-ounce flexible plastic bags with a “sell by date” up to and including Aug. 8.

The recall was initiated after it was discovered the same product sold in Canada was contaminated with Shigella.

Consumers with questions can contact Los Angeles Salads at 626-322-9017.