Poetry Hut Blog

Poetry News:

1. — William Carlos Williams is one of the most celebrated American poets of the 20th century, yet he toiled in obscurity for much of his life. —
2. — 40 years of fostering creativity —
3. — A group of terrified children were left in tears when their teacher decided to liven up a creative writing class by telling them they might have typhoid —
4. — Poster poems: a big disappointment —
5. — National Endowment For The Arts Funds Construction Of $1.3 Billion Poem —
6. — National Endowment for the Arts chief to resign —

wow: “…it took 232 years to accumulate $9 trillion of debt and in July, we increased it by another $5 trillion by accepting responsibility for Fannie’s and Freddie’s debts“

Poetry News:

1. — Sharon Olds: ‘I’ve tried to make sense of my life … make a small embodiment of ordinary life, from a daughter’s, wife’s, mother’s point of view’ —
2. — From terror to relief, humour to grief, death may be a black subject, but is one of the richest seams of inspiration to poets, and you simply can’t avoid it… —
3. — Traveling Poetry Hut —
4. — Tibet’s most famous woman blogger, Woeser, detained by police —
5. — Decatur Book Fest: Billy Collins is a sellout —
6. — There are certain notions about poetry that must apparently always automatically spring to mind. I’ve decided to start a list of them here. —
7. — Cheap & ridiculous poetry messages hurting fans —
8. — Jane Crown’s poetry radio invites poets,novelists and small press publishers to interview on their craft —

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One of the editors of Cider Press — Robert Wynne — has responded to (what appears to be) unethical behavior regarding their Cider Press Review Book Award. And Stacey Lynn Brown’s rebuttal. (I’ve read that Pavement Saw Press’ contest has been problematic. And did you know that there was no winner chosen this year for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize?)

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Every year, there are thousands upon thousands of poets contributing money into contests. In many cases each poet is spending hundreds and sometimes over a thousand dollars a year doing this. If we do a very conservative estimate that there are 4000 poets a year spending $250 (that would be roughly 5-6 contests and doesn’t include postage) a year — that’s a million dollars into this contest system.

— read the rest and take the Take the “Are Poetry Contests Killing Your Soul?” Quiz

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Game Show Vs. Riefenstahl. There are better (?) pictures:

Come On Down! — XXXOOO Love, Leni.

ps. Looking at the DNC pics also makes me hear rows of slot machines in my head. There needs to be a Harley in the background, rotating slowly on a turntable platform, surrounded by a bank of slot machines.

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