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Poetry News For November 20, 2008

Poetry News:

— “David Alpaugh, who has both run and won a poetry book contest himself, offers his astute analysis of the business of selecting poetry books for publication by holding a competition…” —

— Colossus of Rhodes to be rebuilt as giant light sculpture —

— Trinity Rep Radio Theater: This program will feature stories and poems that explore the relationship between mothers and daughters. [MP3] —

— In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours —

— Not the original? A new translation by Burton Raffel offers a modern version of Chaucer’s medieval masterpiece. —

— The National Book Awards winners —

— The Review Review reviews lit mags (just print ones?) —

— DIY Poetry Movements from alt.NPR: Poetry Off the Shelf Podcast: How Zukofsky and the Language Poets got started, and the rules for starting a movement of your own. [MP3] —

— What is the social role of a micro-press in today’s literary marketplace, environment, and economy? —

Google has Life Magazine photo archives online. Not too many poets & no women. Some Millay, etc if you search “poetess” though. (And you better behave or Bette Davis is going to get you. I have to say, that is a very weird combo of reader/poet.)

Is there anyone out there who has cable TV / Discovery Health & can tape a show for me?

Dec 08, 10:00 pm
(60 minutes)

repeat:
Dec 09, 2:00 am
(60 minutes)

Mystery Diagnosis
The Baby Who Wouldn’t Stop Crying

Baby Averi Williams develops a bluish tint to the whites of her eyes and a bulging forehead; 15 year-old, Lynn Sanders is leading a normal life when she begins to experience a deep nagging pain in her hands during swim practice.

Poetry News For November 16, 2008

Poetry News:

— Pioneering small publisher New Rivers Press marks 40th anniversary —

— The 11th Resurrection of Galatea looks to be yet another faboo read. The official deadline is today but I can keep taking reviews through Monday. —

— Troubled Sleep: A Discussion of Ezra Pound’s “Cantico del Sole”
from PoemTalk, Hosted by Al Filreis and featuring poets Charles Bernstein, Rachel Levitsky, & Joshua Schuster [MP3] —

— Center For Book Arts: Our complete catalogue of broadsides from the Center’s Poetry Broadside Reading Series is now available online with images - click here to take a look! —

— How complete should a complete works be? —

— Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association are appalled to learn that detained poet Aung Than, a member of the opposition National League for Democracy, was probably infected with the HIV virus when he was forcibly injected —

— The first £50,000 biannual prize is dedicated to “complexity” and nominations - invited from all university staff - have produced a list of 20 titles —

— Waterstone’s should not have been shouted down by Christian Voice —

— Poetry’s roots in sacred song are undeniable. —

— In the case of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, the myth made by gossip has long obscured the art made by a couple of poets. That’s a pity. —

woot:Sun Shows Signs Of Life: Long-Awaited Solar Cycle 24 Starting To Take Off

Poetry News For November 15, 2008

Poetry News:

— A poet has been forced to launch his new collection in the street after a bookstore cancelled the event because of a campaign by Christian activists. —

— Cocktails and prostate jokes —

— For the first time on the iPhone, poetry fans can make their own poems —

— Contrary to the popular myth, we don’t all have a book in us and pretending otherwise devalues great writing —

— Never one to waste words, he gets mileage out of each of these possibilities in this chapbook’s mixture of short essays, poems, and prose poem —

— Despite the promising subject, the poems do not quite work —

— Harjo, the University’s only Joseph Russo Endowed Professor, said her resignation was a result of the administration’s decision to retain associate professor Lisa Chavez. —

Poetry News For November 14, 2008

Glasses won’t really “fix” the problems I am having with the epiretinal membrane. Eye patch, it is, then. I’m getting new glasses anyway, because my prescription got better in one sense, LOL. David Bowie says to wear the eye patch.

Poetry News:

— will art survive the economy? —

— USC English professor named Calif. poet laureate —

— Dorothy Parker: Short stories Here We Are and You Were Perfectly Fine, and Alexander Woolcott’s elegy Our Mrs. Parker. [MP3] —

— How does one manage to have a book of poetry reviewed in The New York Times Book Review? Well, let’s see, perhaps we can glean a hint. —

— Why poetry is the soldier’s art —

— Write or Die: Do you dare? —

— Greensboro Baker Finds Lost Obama Poems —

— Filipina Poets in an exhibit at the Library of Congress —

— When a Real-Life Killing Sent Two Future Beats in Search of Their Voices —

— Douglas Kearney says winning a Whiting Writers’ Award is a fresh start —

Poetry News For November 13, 2008

ALERT: I have stopped using Feedburner to distribute my RSS feed, due to continuing problems/unresponsiveness to my customer service inquiries. The latest saga was an out-of-control Feedburner bot, which crashed my webhost’s server, where this blog resides.

This is my RSS feed address, which will no longer redirect to Feedburner. I think they have a courtesy redirect, but that eventually will time out. Unless you subscribed directly to the Feedburner feed, you should be OK. And in that case, Feedburner will eventually warn you.

Also, if you get this blog via email (through Feedburner) it no longer works. You can re-subscribe if you want, but you have to sign up at RSSFwd to complete the process. Sorry. Between Feedburner blowing me off, and Technorati dropping this blog from their indices because it doesn’t measure up to their standards, I’m getting the feeling that Web 2.0 hates me.

Last chance to vote in my lit mag subscription poll.

Poetry News:

— In a certain sense, poet Jane Augustine also owes a lot to Snyder: like him, she is an enthusiastic mountain climber, a devoted student of Buddhism, an erudite reader of world literature, and a poet who, despite traveling the world, has maintained her roots in the West where she was born. —

— M. Rahimi was inspired to write the book as a tribute to an Afghan poetess, Nadia Anjuman, who was beaten to death by her husband in 2005 —

— Though he can recite Ashbery and Tate from memory, his own poems are more deeply indebted to the music of Junior Brown, Paul Butterfield, and Sonny Boy Williamson. —

— Blue Positive, Martha Silano’s second collection of poems, reveals an intimate knowledge of the brightest and darkest aspects of motherhood. [MP3] —

— Winner of the eleventh annual Boston Review poetry contest —

— Jane Crown show with Kenneth Pobo —

— No Tell Books has a new blog. Go look. —

Poetry News For November 12, 2008

Poetry News:

— Prison court sentences blogger to 20 years, poet to two years —

— In “Ballistics,” the poet continues his vein of poetry that holds one-sided, intimate conversations with the reader —

— Child’s Garden of Hip-Hop (for Mom to Love, Too) —

— In his new collection of poems, Warhorses, Yusef Komunyakaa explores familiar themes with idiosyncratic grace and musical intensity. —

— Poetry Roundup —

— Harjo, Cazimero win $50,000 USA Fellowship grants —

— Wordplay with Peter Culley & Ezra Pound [MP3] —

— A Guilty Conscience for her Time —

— Poem of the week: In the Trenches —

Poetry News For November 10, 2008

Poetry News:

— Best of Southern literature honored —

— Robert Frost removed his coat to show the ruffians at Methuen’s Second Grammar School he wasn’t someone they should mess with —

— Miami a natural haven for persecuted writers —

— It may sound cliché, but every once in a while a writer, musician or anyone who calls himself an artist presents the world in a way that teaches a unique perspective on the beauty of life —

— The Bat Poet Needs Your Help —

— Tightrope Books Launches The Best Canadian Poetry 2008 —

— Antiques dealer in Bard probe bailed —

The lit mag readership poll is still open.

Poetry News For November 9, 2008

Poetry News:

— Poster poems: Terza rima —

— Those overly punctuated lines make you stop and start, forcing you to inhabit a mind formulating an opinion, one phrase at a time —

— Though the lives of poets often remain mysteriously veiled during our earliest encounters with poetry, biographical details can provide an important bridge of accessibility for young readers —

— I was engaging in a dubious art form that has no audience —

— Like the 18th-century Galante style in music, Merrill’s work has a high, almost lacquered finish and prizes the qualities of refinement, intricacy of design and formal containment —

— Irish poet Ciaran Berry has won the £3000 Jerwood Aldeburgh first collection prize for what judges described as an unusually assured and mature collection of poetry. —

Lit mag readership poll is still open.

Poetry News For November 7, 2008

Poetry News:

— Despite the tough publishing climate, Graywolf Press’ art before profit philosophy has given rise to both —

— A recently discovered version of “Irene” or “The Sleeper,” one of Poe’s most important poems, has surfaced in rural Virginia. —

— Derek Walcott explains why, as Pasternak said, ‘great poets have no time to be original’ —

— Otoliths #11 has gone live! —

— Bob Stein invites you to help spend his latest NEH grant —

— WordPlay with William Matthews, Ranier Maria Rilke, Robert Bly, Lee Ann Brown, Peter Culley, & Cathy Smith Bowers [MP3] —

— Prof structurally liberates classic waka —

— Search and Destroy was born, with $100 seed money from Allen Ginsberg and matching funds from his boss Lawrence Ferlinghetti. —

— When I first got exposed to the study of Native writers in literature, a lot of (them) were poets —

Absolutely petrified. Blah.

Poetry News For November 6, 2008

Poetry News:

— The book-length poem is presented in a series of atmospheric vignettes written primarily in brief couplets, interrupted periodically with parentheticals and postcards and another review here at Ron Slate’s blog —

— At the risk of oversimplification, there’s a schism in American poetics: writers who live in the world (so-called lived experience) vs. writers who live by the word —

— Poet lands book deal with major publisher —

— Anne Sexton’s Scrapbook: A look inside the young poet’s life 16 years before she won the Pulitzer Prize. —

— Myth and magic of Wilfred Owen —

— In just a few lines, Joe renders redundant the contents of entire libraries on aboriginal dispossession and cultural destruction. —

— The Measure of Democracy By John Ashbery, August Kleinzahler, Joshua Mehigan, Mary Jo Bang and J. D. McClatchy—

— PW’s Best Books of the Year —

Court Green wants poems about the ’70s &
Shenandoah wants poems and stuff about Flannery O’Connor &
tuesday;an art journal is fresh &
Anti- is fresh &
dead mule is fresh & so is
womb poetry too &
deadline is about a month away: “Initiated in 1998, the Stadler Fellowship offers a recent MFA, MA, or PhD graduate in poetry the opportunity to receive professional training in arts administration and literary editing.”

Poetry News For November 4, 2008

Poetry News:

— Without context, Linda Bierds’ poems are strings of carefully chosen words — burnished and honed, linked with obvious intention and care, hinting at images of loveliness or grotesquerie, but ultimately arcane —

— Dante’s Inferno is to be made into a game by Electronic Arts and a movie by Universal Pictures. —

— It should be unsurprising to devotees of Kapuściński that such a poetic journalist also pursued a secondary career in poetry. —

— At the ceremony, they gave us each a library edition of someone. I got Walt Whitman. He’s been a huge, well, for me, an abundant source. —

— There is nothing medieval about Kristin Bock’s latest collection of poetry in Cloisters. —

— It seems he sent his neighbor a number of poems on the topic of loud leaf-blowing and was charged with harassment. —

— A good electronic reader is just the right mix of book and nonbook. —

I thought this day wouldn’t never get here. Finally.

Poetry News For November 3, 2008

Poetry News:

— Beautiful vowels —

— I’m not much for modern poetry, but I like Szymborska because of her compassion, her humility and her warm good humor. —

— Whiting Writing Prize Winners Are Announced —

— A fiddling poet reports from the road —

— Major Project to Record the Voices of Ghana’s Poets —

— Artist Jenny Holzer has been projecting Szymborska’s words on downtown buildings —

— Poets see no rhyme or reason for Listener’s decision to drop odes —

— Oppie’s wife, Kitty (played by sexy new mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke), sings a love poem by Muriel Rukeyser as an aria —

— Joe Milford Poetry Show Hosts Ravi Shankar! - Nov 02,2008 —

— Vanderbilt poet Rick Hilles wins Whiting Writers’ Award - $$50,000 prize goes to writers of exceptional promise —

— What killed Dylan Thomas? —

— Frieda Hughes at the Ted Hughes Festival —

— A number of local councils in Britain have banned their staff from using Latin words, because they say they might confuse people—

— Drawing on records dating back to the journals of Henry David Thoreau, scientists have found that different plant families near Walden Pond have borne the effects of climate change in strikingly different ways —

— Wordplay this week: Lee Ann Brown [MP3] —

— Unpacking the Boxes is a tale of a poet’s ambitions, but even more it is a tribute to poetry and the beauty and wonder it gives to life —

— With the nights drawing in, it’s time to turn our attention to the poetry of snow, sleet and hail. —

— Bishop for much of her life was a poet’s poet, which means a poet without an audience. —

— Poet Charles Olson’s book Call Me Ishmael (1947) is a rare thing: a great book about a great book —

— All this—the mediocrity, the obscurity (whether intentional or not)—stands in such marked contrast to the poetry —

— Writing in Slate (2003), Adam Kirsch compared O’Driscoll to Philip Larkin, in part because, like Larkin, he has a day job that isn’t teaching, and he writes poems about it —

— FSU professor puts jazz singer’s life in verse —

— There’s an unwritten rule in the writing game that states, “The better you write, the less you make” and so most of Ottawa’s poets, and there are reams of them, do something else as well —

— Poem of the week: Life —

— Why a particular location can make a poem universal —

Mathematician Cracks Mystery Beatles Chord — the article can be downloaded at this link (PDF). Also see Einstein’s Music here hahaha.

***

Friday is the day of my appointment with the retina specialist. I’m trying not to “google” the myriad of horrible scenarios. Trying not to freak out about it. Robert Hayden couldn’t see so good & he still wrote some pretty good poems. …in related news, the NYT has a weird body quiz.

I have poetry news scheduled for the rest of the week. Have a good Election Day. I have a feeling it is going to be a cluster-you-know-what, like the 2000 election. Hopefully I’m wrong.

Poetry News For October 29, 2008

Poetry News:

— “Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing.” —

— In the case of After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events, edited by Tom Lombardo (Sante Lucia Books), poems have been chosen to help readers to recover from subjects such as war, abuse, addiction, death, and more. —

— Mark Roper’s lightness of touch captures the poise and beauty of this peculiar bird —

— Wellesley’s Dan Chiasson named poetry editor of Paris Review —

— Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, Sylvia Plath and … Marie Osmond. UbuWeb is a weird and wonderful treasure trove of the avant garde —

— Georgetown Welcomes Award-Winning Poet Carolyn Forché to Faculty —

Just in time for Halloween, I am sporting an eye patch. Aaaarrrrr. Still trying to figure it out - seeing a specialist next week. The eyeball is like 80% collagen, so … spooky. (My body makes messed up collagen.) My regular eye Dr. spent almost 2 hours with me yesterday. She’s great.

ps. taking a break until I can see straight.