Poetry Hut Blog
Poetry News

Poetry News:

1. — New pop-culture haiku says a lot with few words. thanks for letting me know —
2. — Favorite signatures: from Ginsberg to Sedaris —
3. — Poetry embraces Vancouver hotel tower —
4. — The Common Law Illusion: Literary Justice in Coleridge’s On the Constitution of the Church and State —
5. — Test your knowledge of literary trivia found in “Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara” —
6. Poet Collin Kelly, author of the new chapbook “After the Poison,” will also be featured. —
7. — Half-rejected —

Wish me luck at my Dr appt today I’m hoping it will lead to some answers.

Poetry News:

1. — Claudia Emerson, a professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, is Virginia’s new poet laureate —
2. — Teaching a Nephew to Type by Rebecca McClanahan —
3. — UTC Professor Named Finalist In International Poetry Competition —
4. — Ahmed Faraz: poet of love and defiance —
5. — The City Has Moved Too Close to the Sun: A Detroit Cento Cut-Up poem —
6. — Poetry peepshow staged for literary voyeurs at Toronto arts festival —

Air-purifying Church Windows Were Early Nanotechnology: Stained glass windows that are painted with gold purify the air when they are lit up by sunlight, experts have discovered.

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 —

*****

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?)

*****

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

*****

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.

*****

Poetry News:

1. — This month, your task is to carry on with Coleridge’s unfinished masterpiece Kubla Khan —
2. — Was New American Review the Best Literary Magazine Ever? —
3. — Nike Langston Hughes commercial [you tube] —
4. — “An important piece from poet (and good friend) Stacey Brown on an unethical press and its dealings with her and her book.” —
5. — With a fresh, wry voice, Meghan O’Rourke can make the quotidian sound strange, the same way Joseph Cornell could assemble a magical collage —
6. — One of the problems with political poetry, then, is that like all speech, it exists at the mercy of time, history, and other people. —
7. — 50 Greatest Books: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats —
8. — Lansing Community College Professor Dennis Hinrichsen has won the 12th annual FIELD Poetry Prize for his manuscript, “Kurosawa’s Dog.” —
9. — Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will speak about “The State of the Humanities” at Vanderbilt University, on Friday, Sept. 5, at Ingram Hall at the Blair School of Music. —
10. — Virgil, Monteverdi, James Joyce, Nikos Kazantzakis, Ralph Ellison and Derek Walcott are just a few of the artists to have transformed this spellbinding and mysterious epic into powerful works of their own —

Licking Your Wounds: Scientists Isolate Compound In Human Saliva That Speeds Wound Healing

Poetry News:

1. — In an ideal world the writer would like to say one’s only allegiance is to his/her art or craft —
2. — “Bukowski had a story that essentially was saying that it’s the little things that drive men mad” —
3. — The poem I’ve chosen, “Come the Revolution” relishes the human comedy - especially when human aspires to be poet —
4. — That experience inspired her first collection of poetry, The Adoption Papers (Bloodaxe), about an adopted child’s awareness of being different, and her search for her cultural identity —
5. — Bay Area journal is an improbable success story in world of letters —

Taking a break again.

Poetry News:

1. — Where’s Weldon? —
2. — Just what is a university press? Plenty —
3. — “Everything she did made headlines,” said Bergman, executive director of the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society. “She was a rock star.” —
4. — Poet’s works discovered in war diary —
5. — Poet explains his own creative process —
6. — In his ninth book of poetry, Nurkse sees the nuances in the smallest moments —

Nashville Is Reads Pictures

You Are Archery

You are a bit of a traditionalist. You like old fashioned things with deep traditions. You also like to see the result of your accomplishments right in front of you. If practice makes perfect, that’s fine by you. You like to practice a skill.

here thanks>

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. — I interviewed you about 10 years ago and you talked about how you like to write poetry. Do you still do that? —
2. — Mauritanian poet wins Abu Dhabi’s ‘Prince of Poets’ —
3. — They might look simple, but writing well in Edward Fitzgerald’s adopted form is a lot harder than it looks —
4. — Hospital offers patients poetry therapy —
5. — Theft snuffs 5 years’ work on poet’s life —
6. — Is Modern Literature Out of Compelling Quotations? —

Lunar Eclipse weekend’s Eclipse Cam!

Poetry News:

1. — The ethereal world of radio poetry —
2. — Beowulf Through the Eyes of Women —
3. — The poetry of pain —
4. — Byron, ghost and partisans enlisted to save Tuscan villa in ruins & Lord Byron’s fanmail uncovered —
5. — 100 Near Perfect Books of Poetry —
6. — Spillage from the Riptides of Desire: Poetry Blurbs —
7. — Mr. Alexander fashions from modern English a vivid reincarnation of Anglo-Saxon poetry — its grim pathos studded with brilliant figurations, its morbid griefs sung in an armorial tone of resolve —
8. — Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2008 Results —

*****
“A researcher argues in Science that a basic tenet of economics — that people always behave selfishly — can be wrong, sometimes badly so. He points to new experimental evidence that people do often act against their own personal self-interest in favor of the common good, and they do so in predictable, understandable ways. Poorly-designed economic institutions fail to take advantage of intrinsic moral behavior and often undermine it.”

*****

Steel Toe Books has an open reading period in October for formal-type full-length poetry book manuscripts.

*****

I don’t have any poetry rules. So I was reading Mary Biddinger’s blog post with everyone’s comments & I was going “I ummmmmmmm … errrrrrr … well … gee.” I   tend to need to have  require some sort of constraint to write up against, though. That’s not a rule though, it’s more like a pathology. I do like to see what I can get away with — in fact, I’ll probably use everyone’s rules about “what not to do” as writing prompts hardee har har har har.

*****

Poetry News:

1. — Poetry Buying Survey (3 questions) —
2. — Fitting farewell to Palestinian poet —
3. — Counter-Revolution of the Word:The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945–1960 —
4. — San Francisco looking for next poet laureate —
5. — Library of Congress Adds New Authors to Eighth Annual National Book Festival; Free Podcasts Invite Nationwide Participation in Celebration of Reading —
6. — Poet Ricardo Pau-Llosa Reflects on Influences, Art [MP3 @ PBS] —
7. — A question about scansion in a country music song —

If anyone would like a review copy of my book or chapbook, email me. I have a few that I bought to send out (other than the ones I have already sent as a thank-you to folks who have published my poems before). Lotsa publications won’t accept a review a self-published/DIY-published book, however, so be aware of that before you email me. If you want to review it on your blog that’s fine.

Poetry News:

1. — Higginson has been ridiculed as a second-rater who allowed too much editorial tampering when he first published Dickinson’s poems, —
2. — Sylvia Plath—original hip-hop poet —
3. — This stunning Northern Irish poet is easily on a par with famous Seamus —
4. — Sex and the semicolon —
5. — A book of poems featured prominently in AMC’s widely lauded “Mad Men” sent viewers scrambling to find copies —
6. — I have a plea for any internet animation specialists out there: more poetry, please —
7. — UGA grad Trethewey named Georgia Woman of the Year —
8. — The verse novel (like the rock opera or the sound sculpture) is the awkward child of successful parents, destined to disappoint both of them —
9. — LOL —

Poetry News:

1. — Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish dead at 67 —
2. — Assessing Kay Ryan, our new poet laureate —
3. — McSweeney’s Rejects Mike Mussina’s Seventh Consecutive Submission —
4. — Like Ginsberg - like Pablo Neruda, like Walt Whitman - Herrera found such forms in long lists, long lines, long poems made out of short parts —
5. — The Voices and Visions videos are available online via learner.org! Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Wallace Stevens, etc —
6. — It’s that same sense of dignity that Hayden brought to this next poem, which praises a different kind of sacrifice for another ancestor of his: the freed slave Frederick Douglass —
7. — Portrait of Calliope (detail), muse of poetry, found at Pompeii guest house —

Poetry News:

1. — Nancy Galbraith; Led Center For Poetry —
2. — Reversing the Tide: Professor Gives Due
 to Self-Taught Poets —
3. — Journals that take summer submissions (3 recent blog posts) —
4. — Reb Livingston is guest blogging at The Best American Poetry (where I found the link below) —
5. — 68 new reviews of poetry books. Edited by Eileen Tabios —
6. — Bosnia’s butcher poet —
7. — poetry & rss I know that dead mule has an rss feed —
8. — Soldier-Poet Brian Turner, Framing War In Verse —
9. — WordPlay 7/20 Jeffrey Beam on Jonathan Williams [mp3] —

Poetry News:

1. — The actress has been lambasted as old and out of touch for her controversial views on modern verse —
2. — A slap to poetry in Indiana? ow —
3. — Hoftsra researchers dig into times of slave poet —
4. — Poet Kay Ryan On Words, Writing —
5. — This week’s poem is by the greatest poet of all time —
6. — The poet turned war criminal enjoyed the protection of loyal Bosnian Serbs during his years on the run —
7. — Poetry about absence reflects mature growth —

“What happened Tuesday night was definitely a rare occurrence and one we should not expect to see again in our lifetimes”