Poetry Hut Blog
Philip Larkin

Poetry News:

1. — Is it harder to write a great sonnet than a great hip-hop verse? —
2. — The reclusive Dickinson had a worldly mentor and friend —
3. — Dylan’s Poetic Pause in Hollywood on the Way to Folk Music Fame —
4. — The 2008 recipients of the Iowa Poetry Prize —
5. — Philip Larkin almost tried to sound unattractive and misanthropic —
6. — LOL —

Poetry News:

1. — Things fall apart: is the post-9/11 imagination disintegrating? —
2. — Happy Birthday, Archibald MacLeish! —
3. — Dante, Primo Levi and the intertextualists —
4. — On other occasions he complained he looked like “a cross between an egg and a bloodhound” and “an egg sculpted in lard, with goggles on” —
5. — It reminds me of the old black and white films; the mist, the looming shapes that become familiar upon approach, the necessary promise of a romantic meeting… the poem is pregnant with possibilities that remain non-specific —
6. — There’s no point in piling up a mountain of poems that no one wants to read —
7. — wikipedia’s list of American poets is strange & they have weird rules for notability. The discussions about Shanna Compton’s John Gallaher’s articles are kind of hilarious in their ignorance. I’m not a huge fan of Wikipedia…just different arbiters. —
8. — Wheaton College Prof. Resigns After School Questions Details of Divorce —

Virginia Quarterly Review apologized for publicly making fun of their slushpile & took down the offending comments. Google cached it though. I’m a Libra and I like “nice” I guess, because I am starting to get really really sick of snottiness disguised as cleverness or intellect. Or maybe it is because I didn’t really grow up in that whole middle class world? I grew up with people who mostly knew life is rough, and gave everyone else a begrudging respect at least, because of that shared experience. And if you are going to be a smart ass / asshole, you better be prepared to back it up / defend yourself. Anyway, the thing that bothered me about the post was that the prose poem genre (as a whole) was lumped in with poor writing.

Poetry News:

1. — A Poem for the NCAA Basketball Tournament —
2. — Death, destruction and fear on the streets of cafes, poets and booksellers —
3. — What he would have us hearken to most closely is not the song the verse-maker spins inside his own head, but the common world’s melody, “the music of what happens” —
4. — It seems that the challenges of living elicit the most eloquent and powerful verse, and sometimes that power is delivered in a quiet voice —
5. — Wordclay Recognized as Site of the Week by PC Magazine —
6. — He told his readers difficult truths about their lives … but he did so in a way which was oddly consoling in its honesty —
7. — Hughes is a vigorous poet and the muscle of his language lifts the ordinary or overlooked experience, turns it about, holds it up to the light —
8. — Jean Valentine, Poetry Faculty Member Since 1974, Named New York State Poet for 2008-2010 —

Poetry News:

1. — Who can explain why the practice of poetry has become the object of so much satire and snide dismissal? [link found here thanks] —
2. — The Poem as Comic Strip #6 —
3. — For this, my farewell “Poet’s Choice” column, here are two poems related by a form: the sonnet —
4. — He is the leading New Zealand poet of his generation, but Bill Manhire prefers to “bump into meaning” rather have an agenda —
5. — How do you capture the tortured life of one of hockey’s greatest goaltenders? Why, you turn it into verse, of course —
6. — BBC to broadcast lost Philip Larkin poems —
7. — Classic Review: Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman —
8. — “Saliva Trails” - Currently the Best Selling Book of Poetry in English, Released from Korea Through Lulu.com —

Poetry News:

1. — “The fact that your taste in poetry is exectable shouldn’t prevent us from having a vermouth together” —
2. — No contemporary poet is famous, but some are less unfamous than others —
3. — US poet and novelist Bukowski’s poems to be translated in Iran —
4. — Bigger Cars, Flip-Up Seats, Poetry: How Riders Would Run a Subway —
5. — Delta State to give honorary doctorate to poet Trethewey —
6. — Poetry’s PR chick —
7. — Last night Doris Lessing, aged 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In her acceptance speech she recalls her childhood in Africa and laments that children in Zimbabwe are starving for knowledge, while those in more privileged countries shun reading for the ‘inanities’ of the internet —
8. — Poet David Poston will receive the 2007 Randall Jarrell/Harperprints Poetry Chapbook Competition Award —
9. — Inspired by a TV documentary on mining perils, Philip Larkin wrote a great poem only 25 lines long —

Poetry News:

1. — When she died a spinster of 55 in 1886 only five of her poems had been published, all anonymously —
2. — Woman nicknamed ‘lyrical terrorist’ escapes jail sentence —
3. — Made in Chicago: Wickedpen [ congrats ] —
4. — He is often poised discomfortingly and achingly between emotional immediacy and wiseass —
5. — Poet Maya Angelou’s “Celebrations” is also in the running —
6. — Philip Larkin, rock god? —
7. — a mystical zone that for 500 or so years has been the sweet spot of civilized consciousness —

crap. I guess I’ll keep an eye out for my letter.