Poetry Hut Blog

Poetry News:

1. — Forgotten treasure from Brazil —
2. — Eyes, and whether or not to trust them, are central to Ode to Psyche by John Keats —
3. — Slain man identified as UC Riverside professor —
4. — Poetry Foundation clarifies the policy on their blog comments —
5. — The Poet’s Poet —
6. — A 21st-century warning from a 13th-century poet —
7. — Web Extra: Selected Poems by Kay Ryan —
8. — Radio 4 poet criticises BBC soaps and aggressive interviewers —

Brace yourselves

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Who voted for Kay Ryan in the poll last week? Raise your hands. Who was the “suggester”? Yay Kay! I think that’s great.

“Kay Ryan, Poet Laureate” anagrams to:

Ya! A natural! Eke poetry.
A yank poetry laureate.
An okay letter aura — yep!

Poetry News:

1. — Knox is at her best in poems that demonstrate an understanding of poetry —
2. — More on the Frost “poetry punishment at the Poetry Foundation’s blog, Harriet —
3. — John Ashbery’s Notes From the Air: Selected Later Poems and Robin Blaser’s The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser are the International and Canadian winners of the eighth annual Griffin Poetry Prize —
4. — Is there an American poet more unique and incapable of characterization than James Tate? —
5. — Putting Your Poetry in Order —
6. — An extraordinary poet examines ordinary subjects —
7. — In the introduction to ‘The Best American Erotic Poems from 1800 to the Present’ (Scribner, $30), the poet and critic David Lehman points to what he sees as a “vital American tradition of erotic poetry” —
8. — Hollins University will receive a $5 million gift to establish what will be known as the Jackson Center for Creative Writing —
9. — Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen finds refuge in Sweden —
10. — An athlete in the extreme sport of poetry —

Poetry News:

1. — How often have we tried to convey our feelings, only to find our mouth issuing words that we had never intended to speak? —
2. — Australian Mullahs Attack Literature Course on Women —
3. — Now celebrating its 30th anniversary, Bloodaxe has established itself as a fundamental force in British poetry —
4. — How to outsource the slush pile —
5. — ‘Pantun’ festival presents Malay hospitality —
6. — What often surfaces in Salter’s poems are the moments when earnestness of feeling is in play with artificiality of expression. —
7. — architect Ian Stainburn has been given the tricky task of restoring and preserving Shakespeare’s tombstone, - a slab bearing a terrifying curse which warns people not to move it —

There will be a special announcement in 2 days.

ha ha I’m famous.

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.

[still getting splogged/scraped, sorry. Turned off the full RSS feed again.]

Poetry News:

1. — Pinned in a subway car with arms at your sides, you can call up a poem and enter a cathedral of words that anoints you again in your singular passions —
2. — Mary Jo Salter came of age as a poet in the 1970s when two tribes, the Language poets and the New Formalists, were sparring —
3. — Red Morning Press is now reading manuscripts for publication —
4. — Lost for words: The misery of a deleted manuscript —
5. — Writers like Flaubert have been accused of over-using metaphor, but is it possible to have too much of such a good thing? —
6. — PEN America is trying to get China to free nearly 40 writers —
7. — Why poetry still matters —
8. — With “In Praise of the Unfinished: Selected Poems,” Hartwig, author and editor of more than a dozen books, at last has a collection in English —
9. — Horton hears Dr. Seuss – rotating in the grave [download here I think] —
10. — Objectivist poet Louis Zukofsky once confided, “the poet’s form is never an imposition of history, but the desirability of making order out of history as it is felt and conceived —
11. — OOpen-faced wunderkind from the Southern States —

“It puts the owl in the basket ….”

The Pentagon’s Information Operations Roadmap is blunt about the fact that an internet, with the potential for free speech, is in direct opposition to their goals.

I got this from the informative CRWOPPS list. Good luck, youngsters:

Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships

http://poetryfoundation.org/programs/2008_Lilly_Fellowship_app.pdf

(go to this address to download entry form)

Five Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships in the amount of  $15,000 will be awarded to young poets through a national competition sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry. Established in 1989 by the Indianapolis philanthropist Ruth Lilly, the fellowships are intended to encourage the further study and writing of poetry. Applicants must be US citizens between the age of twenty-one and thirty-one as of  March 31, 2008.

Applicants should submit:

Completed application form

Ten pages of poems, double spaced

One paragraph explaining how the fellowship would aid the applicant’s work

A publication list (optional)

Do not include any additional material at this time (cv, cover letter, references, etc.). If you wish to be notified of receipt of your application, include a self-addressed, stamped postcard. Application materials will not be returned. Applications must be postmarked during the month of March 2008. Electronic submissions will not be considered. Finalists will be announced on August 1, 2008 at poetryfoundation.org. Winners will be announced by September 1, 2008.

Poetry News:

1. — Writing tops poll of ideal jobs —
2. — Prolific poet was a gracious critic —
3. — Mary Jo Salter and Brad Leithauser, a couple with individual success, will write the next chapter of Hopkins’ Writing Seminars —
4. — Conversation With a Poet Laureate —
5. — Rare Anne Spencer collection headed to UVa —
6. — Renowned poet and Tennessee native Nikki Giovanni will return to her alma mater this fall as a distinguished visiting professor at Fisk University —

March 20-23, 2008 “You are invited to our nation‘ capital for a festival that celebrates our great tradition of poetry of witness and resistance.”

“There were no differences by political party in the percentage of those who said they had not read at least one book” … and One in Four Read No Books Last Year

Evidently, lit mag distributor Bernhard DeBoer has gone out of business.

Here is an OPML file of my poetry-related blog subscriptions. I guess you can right-click to download it. You can import it into Bloglines or Google Reader or other blog readers. I recently switched from Bloglines to Google reader entirely because Bloglines kept giving me old feeds.