Poetry Hut Blog
haiku

Poetry News:

1. — Court advisor says poem list infringed database right —
2. — Portugal Holds On to a Poet’s Words That Few Can Grasp —
3. — Moscow at the end of the first decade of the 21st century is not a place many would equate with poetry —
4. — For generations, both the young and the old in the hamlet of Hoang Duong in Ung Hoa town in the northern province of Ha Tay have communicated by poetry —
5. — Stemming flow of literary heritage across the pond —
6. — Haiku in English —
7. — Dylan Thomas Prize Finalists Announced —
8. — “For every rule in formal poetry, a creative window opens.” —
9. — Turning the Page on The Disposable Book —

Why Musicians Make Us Weep And Computers Don’t

So I was outside and I reached for the handle of the screen door and did I mention that is was nighttime? I almost grabbed this thing with the big pinchers … I actually went ahhhhhhhhh! & kind of screamed hahahaha

Poetry News:

1. — Readers solve ‘lost’ poet mystery —
2. — To the Editor: In his review of Frank O’Hara’s “Selected Poems” (June 29), William Logan … —
3. — Poetry Everywhere? Yes, Everywhere! —
4. — From great landscapes spring fine poetry, but which scenes of inspiration and dedication stick most in the mind? —
5. — Ex-Poet Phelps suits up for Orioles —
6. — Why Africa needs to invest in its own literature —
7. — “Airing out books after the monsoon rains have passed” is a seasonal reference used by haikuists —
8. — WPVM’s Wordplay Podcast with Landon Godfrey [mp3] —

Fastest Known Muscles Found in Songbirds’ Throats

Poetry News:

1. — Most Recent Articles from American Poetry Review, The —
2. — Female contenders rule out ‘archaic’ post of Poet Laureate —
3. — In the 1960s, when some in academia still denied the existence of Native American literature, Paula Gunn Allen embarked on a career that proved them wrong — and altered the required reading lists of literature classes on U.S. college campuses —
4. — Asahi Haikuist Network —
5. — When Barbara Guest passed away in the winter of 2006, America lost one of its most fiercely independent and original artists. —
6. — The Art of the Blurb: Results of the Poll —
7. — In 1611, at age 42, Lanyer became the first woman to publish a book of poetry in English, Salue Deus Rex Judaeorum, or “Hail, God, King of the Jews.” —
8. — Surrealism, Rebellion and the 1960s —
9. — “My problem is that I am the daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, but I wanted to be an individual. But we are, of course, a product of our parents. In denying them, you deny part of who you are. It’s taken me years to be ­comfortable with that” —

This isn’t Miguel Batista’s blog haha. I’m getting erroneous web traffic.

Kucinich introduces Bush impeachment resolution. I’m watching him on C-SPAN right now. Thank you Rep. Kucinich.

Please please please please call your Representative. (202) 224-3121. If you don’t know who that is, you can put your zip code in here and it will tell you.

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. — Detained poet in hospital with hernia —
2. — Haikuists are adept at juxtaposing vivid imagery during springtime —
3. — For the next four days, the area around U Street and Columbia Heights will be buzzing with the presence of poets —
4. — Stray Questions for: Ishmael Reed —
5. — Current Finalists for the 20th Annual Lambda Literary Awards —
6. — “I think poetry is a much larger part of our lives than popular culture indicates” —

I changed my bracket at the last possible minute before lock-down. Final 4 = Tennessee, Memphis, UCLA and Wisconsin. Still going with UT. (I don’t know what I’m doing.)

Some Split This Rock blogging here and here.

Poetry News:

1. — The Paranoiac and the Paris Review —
2. — The irony of depression is that the pervasive sadness that pierces the heart connects the haikuist to the everyday world of necessity —
3. — this remarkable, eccentric, and impressionistic family history by our province’s former Poet Laureate —
4. — He is recurrently snippy about poetry, because poets, indifferent to other people and concerned only with ‘the strenuous display of style’, write primarily about themselves —
5. — ‘Cartography of Water’ shows great promise for poet, new publisher —
6. — Muse who milked the vile young King —

No Vote: IL Obama, Barack [D]
No Vote: NY Clinton, Hillary [D]
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑
COWARDS

Of course McCain voted yes. He scares the hell out of me. My Senators, Lamar Alexander & Bob Corker also voted yes to extend the Protect America Act provisions of FISA. It failed in the House though.

And the House passed HR 982 this week “… recommending that the House of Representatives find Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten, Chief of Staff, White House, in contempt of Congress for refusal to comply with subpoenas duly issued by the Committee on the Judiciary and for the adoption of the resolution (H. Res. 980) authorizing the Committee on the Judiciary to initiate or intervene in judicial proceedings to enforce certain subpoenas.” [way back during the Attorney General firings investigations]

Lots of “NO VOTE” cowards are listed for that. Including my Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

Poetry News:

1. — Barack Obama’s creditable poems are in an erratic tradition of political versifying —
2. — ‘Lap-sonnets’ for Valentine’s Day —
3. — When a professor invents a machine that writes books, and then uses that machine to write more than 200,000 different books, there arises the question, “Why?” —
4. — Sincerity and Its Discontents in American Poetry Now —
5. — Poet John Franklin Dandridge kneels next to his “Clothing Metaphor” —
6. — Poet denies exploiting young men —

Poetry News:

1. — with its closing lines inscribed on Bishop’s tombstone… —
2. — One of an avant-garde group called the Neoteric, or “new’’ poets, he lived a short, libidinous life —
3. — Blogging the AWP —
4. — Haiku poet aims to preserve seasonal words —
5. — Richard Newman has spent the past thirteen years working to keep St. Louis’ oldest literary magazine alive —
6. — New Voices in Writing Offer Their Advice —

Poetry News:

1. — Political rhymes: duple meter vs. iambic pentameter —
2. — the Grand Prize for inspired concept and execution goes to… —
3. — Joe Torre Haiku Contest —
4. — Poet awarded $75,000 fellowship —
5. — This lies at the very heart of Ted Hughes’s vision of life, and made him a much more appropriate laureate for the Thatcher years than sad old Larks in his cycle-clips. —
6. — [ha that kid plagiarized a Tom Lehrer song] —
7. — a sharp reminder that poetry is not merely good thoughts well expressed —
8. — “Evasive Idealism” Handicaps Our Literature; Ellen Glasgow Declares That the American Public Demands Sham Optimism Instead of Straightforward Facing of Life’s Facts By Joyce Kilmer —
9. — Poet Paul Muldoon and Jacki Lyden discover Finnegan’s musicality as they listen to an archival recording of James Joyce reading from his final novel —

FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

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Poetry News:

1. — Robert and Jean Hollander have just completed a beautiful translation of the astonishing fourteenth-century poem —
2. — PBS transforms downtown New Bedford into Walt Whitman’s America —
3. — The Poets.org Poetcast: Charles Simic goes to the planetarium [links to MP3] —
4. — Baseball has long been the sport with the strongest literary heritage —
5. — ** Enter the 11th annual Mainichi Haiku Contest here! ** —
6. — How seven letters managed to freak out an entire nation —

The Nashville Sounds won our division again. I went to exactly *one* game all year. But I have playoff tickets.

Like rats from a sinking ship.

Poetry News:

1. — One of America’s most respected literary magazines”Virginia Quarterly Review … is teaming up with the University of Georgia Press … to bring out a new series of poetry books [thanks Claudia C. for the info] —
2. — Make Bush Name 10 American Poets: Memo to Endowment Head Gioia —
3. — On poetry and sorrows: a short conversation with Robert Bly [may require bug me not] —
4. — Eisteddfod winner scales his peak —
5. — Asahi Haikuist Network —
6. — I need a PHP developer, email me if you are one —
7. — Poet and the Poem series at the US LoC. Amy King is up there now. Congrats, Amy. —

I thought this was a headline from the Onion at first. Same Agencies to Run, Oversee Surveillance Program

This song has been going through my head today for some reason. “That echo chorus lied to me with its ‘hold on hold on hold on hold on.’” Mr. Dybka bought me a post-surgery present & I can play a dorky version of House of the Rising Sun. That instrument actually plays very well. I know what guitar chords look like from when I was a bass player [warning: contains the 1980s], but getting my fingers to do that. Well. And the strings are so thin! …maybe I’ll try to learn that Neko Case song. I think there’s a 7th chord in there though. Maybe not. LOL.

Poetry News:

1. — ‘Penelopiad’ Opens on Stage —
2. — What makes Stevens tough to interpret is his unique diction, which is a mixture of the hymn, the ornate and the bizarre —
3. — Inductee Sanders turns poetic —
4. — In the 1960s, Amiri Baraka converted from Greenwich Village Beat poet to Harlem agitator, influencing a generation of young black writers —
5. — Visiting poets use tools like ‘wormhole haiku’ to inspire young writers —
6. — Here is an awesome one minute trailer for the Roethke Readings —
7. — How does one journey from opacity to transparency? —
8. — what a gifted stand-up artist or actor does with face, body and voice, poetry does with the rhythms of words and the rhythms of thought, in language —

me at myspace

Lead Less Toxic to the Well-Read

Yay!: my new niece, Abigail, and some word puzzles. (And physics.)

Poetry News:

1. — Website prods poets to seek their 15 minutes of creativity —
2. — Maria Rundell taught her readers how to cook a goose, brew beer, make ink and cure baldness —
3. — Novelist, playwright, and poet H. Gregor Lafferty, 41, announced Monday his plan to use water as a metaphor —
4. — Asahi Haikuist Network —
5. — Consider John Barr, who had a thriving career as financier, all the while publishing books of poetry —
6. — The right-wing Government‘ plans for a new syllabus are being compared to crackdowns under the Nazis and Communists, —

When I heard that the CIA put their family jewels online, I immediately thought of this fascinating post by Lyle Daggett. The CIA website is getting hammered so I didn’t poke around too much because it is very slooow. Some highlights:

CRANKS, NUTS, AND SCREWBALLS (1965)

THE INTELL[I]GENCE OF LITERATURE (1963)

REQUEST FOR POPULAR MARIMBA MUSIC POEMS (1954)

BERLIN CONGRESS FOR CULTURAL FREEDOM; ACTIVITIES OF MELVIN LASKY (W/ATTACHMENT) more here (1950)

p.s. Dear CIA — I hope you don’t mind deep-linking.
Love, Jilly