Poetry Hut Blog

Poetry News:

1. — Pioneering small publisher New Rivers Press marks 40th anniversary —
2. — 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. —
3. — 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] —
4. — 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! —
5. — How complete should a complete works be? —
6. — 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 —
7. — The first £50,000 biannual prize is dedicated to “complexity” and nominations - invited from all university staff - have produced a list of 20 titles —
8. — Waterstone’s should not have been shouted down by Christian Voice —
9. — Poetry’s roots in sacred song are undeniable. —
10. — 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:

1. — Beautiful vowels —
2. — I’m not much for modern poetry, but I like Szymborska because of her compassion, her humility and her warm good humor. —
3. — Whiting Writing Prize Winners Are Announced —
4. — A fiddling poet reports from the road —
5. — Major Project to Record the Voices of Ghana’s Poets —
6. — Artist Jenny Holzer has been projecting Szymborska’s words on downtown buildings —
7. — Poets see no rhyme or reason for Listener’s decision to drop odes —
8. — Oppie’s wife, Kitty (played by sexy new mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke), sings a love poem by Muriel Rukeyser as an aria —
9. — Joe Milford Poetry Show Hosts Ravi Shankar! - Nov 02,2008 —
10. — Vanderbilt poet Rick Hilles wins Whiting Writers’ Award - $$50,000 prize goes to writers of exceptional promise —
11. — What killed Dylan Thomas? —
12. — Frieda Hughes at the Ted Hughes Festival —
13. — A number of local councils in Britain have banned their staff from using Latin words, because they say they might confuse people—
14. — 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 —
15. — Wordplay this week: Lee Ann Brown [MP3] —
16. — 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 —
17. — With the nights drawing in, it’s time to turn our attention to the poetry of snow, sleet and hail. —
18. — Bishop for much of her life was a poet’s poet, which means a poet without an audience. —
19. — Poet Charles Olson’s book Call Me Ishmael (1947) is a rare thing: a great book about a great book —
20. — All this—the mediocrity, the obscurity (whether intentional or not)—stands in such marked contrast to the poetry —
21. — 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 —
22. — FSU professor puts jazz singer’s life in verse —
23. — 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 —
24. — Poem of the week: Life —
25. — 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:

1. — The death of the poet Reginald Shepherd has Alan Contreras puzzling over how to judge a student prize in his memory. —
2. — Those eleven [poems] were composed at the ages of twenty-three, forty-one, forty-eight, forty, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty, twenty-eight, thirty-eight, forty-two, and fifty-nine, respectively. There is no evidence, Galenson concluded, for the notion that lyric poetry is a young person’s game. [link thanks] —
3. — Mills College will be the first college in the nation to offer a graduate degree in book art and creative writing. —
4. — Gen Xers and Academia, Revisited —
5. — If you find her elusive approach vexing, there’s an aesthetic and moralistic reasoning behind it: “Fables” is, in part, a protest against the trend toward confessional literature, and the notion that the self represented is the author’s real one. —
6. — Can’t we leave Hughes and Plath alone? —
7. — Burger King Restaurants of Canada Inc. has announced the launch of MeatHaiku.com —

Iraq War Vets Left Bloody at the Debates & more here

Poetry News:

1. — Poem of the week: To a Louse —
2. — British Library acquires Ted Hughes archive for nation —
3. — Podcast: Children’s Author and Poet Carole Boston Weatherford —
4. — Giovanni Finds Funky Beats To Teach Poetry To Kids - NPR —
5. — When Boston-based playwright, poet and Simmons College English professor Afaa Michael Weaver returns home to Baltimore, he often can be found doing tai chi under the trees at Lake Montebello. —
6. — Published last month by Coffee House Press, Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith is a searing portrait of the horrors wrought by Hurricane Katrina —
7. — The distant enchantress who stole a poet’s heart —

Poetry News:

1. — If we could read the poets that move huge audiences elsewhere in the world, would it wake up our own? —
2. — “Accident Plays a Part in Art” from Poetry Magazine Podcast … with Kasischke on Ken Burns, Lindsay on Krakatau, Sheffield on fishing, and Logan on Hart Crane (and David Foster Wallace). [mp3] —
3. — Ted Hughes’s letters contain some splendid perceptions and useful biographical material among a mass of interminable explication. —
4. — As the title suggests, Cities of Flesh and the Dead isn’t afraid of addressing loss or fear or violence. —
5. — Hey Bookslut reviewed my book thanks some happy in a cruddy week. Thanks for getting my jokes. —
6. — Poetry that doesn’t toe a party line —

Yep - testing is all scheduled. I’m looking forward to a resolution.

Poetry News:

1. — A poet’s Yorkshire retreat —
2. — I’m sorry to sound a philistine note, but I find it hard to cheer the current bizarre revival in verse drama —
3. — Wick Poetry Center looks to the past during 25th anniversary celebration —
4. — Dr Andy’s Poetry & Technology Hour w. Joe Biden and Laura Cherry [MP3] —
5. — Wordplay w. Glenis Redmon [MP3] —
6. — A wandering mind can do important work, scientists are learning - and may even be essential —

oh for pete’s sake.

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. — Police close in on Frost suspects and Vandalized Frost house drew a crowd —
2. — Susan Briante, more recently, continues with this approach to poetry as a symbolically active art. —
3. — Snow Falling on Voters By DONALD HALL —
4. — Prozac is all grown up — and all over the arts —
5. — Got a Manuscript? Publishing Now a Snap —
6. — Ted Hughes tops critics’ league table —

Ron Paul’s Remarks on HB 1955 - Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

Poetry News:

1. — Such esoteric experiments as Have They Attacked Mary He Giggled—A Political Satire, Lucy Church Amiably, Tender Buttons and her monumental The Making of Americans may have to wait for a doubtful posterity to be properly appreciated —
2. — Autobiography of a Mythic Life —
3. — Two Poems by Gerald Stern —
4. — Michael Wilding recounts how the University of Sydney was persuaded to establish a creative writing course —
5. — She produced several books on poetics and a book of poetry before publishing her first major biography, of Anne Sexton, in 1991 —
6. — Walton has turned weakness into insight by making letters into visceral objects [might not be safe for work] —
7. — It has been variously labelled ‘Language Poetry’, ‘Language
   Writing’, ‘L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing’ —

Poetry News:

1. — War Has Stopped European Letters and Art; But After Peace Old Forms Will Be Inadequate to Express New and Tremendous Experiences Says Arthur Bullard - By Joyce Kilmer. —
2. — Freelance writer and Navy veteran Jeff Hess is starting a writers group specifically for those who have served in the military [cool, Jeff]—
3. — Beat Philip Whalen’s poetry collected in one sprawling volume —
4. — “Poet’s Choice” columnist Robert Pinsky fields questions and comments on this year in poetry — submit your questions —
5. — Transcendentalism, however, became, in Gura’s words, a “many-headed Hydra,” flourishing in myriad forms —
6. — Ashbery’s anthology ‘Notes From the Air’ delivers, despite himself —
7. — Tehran was enjoying a mild Prague Spring in the late ’90s when I first read García Lorca —
8. — Therefore, her writings assail the canon itself and problematises the notion of ‘literary merit’.” —
9. — I find an element of nonsense can add an interesting sense, and these phrases have an interesting rhythm —
10. — A late, underappreciated poet’s simple, spare style contrasts with elaborate exuberance —
11. — Confession is only for people who already know what’s wrong with them, and knowingness was Hughes’s bete noire —

Sometimes it is really hard to find *any* MSM news (non-blog) article about a female poet. I’m starting to feel torch-pitchforky.

Most popular outgoing links for November, as far as Feedburner is concerned:
1. How to Win a National Book Award in Five Easy Steps

2. Big brother is reading your poetry

3. (tie) it’s impossible not to ask some hard questions about his status and whether it is deserved

3. (tie) since somebody published a poem I wrote when I was 19, which has been mocked, thoroughly, I don’t think those are going to be appearing anytime soon

Poetry News:

1. — How Does the New Poetry Differ from the Old?; Amy Lowell Laments the Lack of Authoritative Criticism in America — Says No One Should Make a Living by Writing — By Joyce Kilmer —
2. — it’s impossible not to ask some hard questions about his status and whether it is deserved —
3. — In a poem of this sort one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective —
4. — BJP seeks political refugee status for Taslima —
5. — Havana-born, Chicago-based writer Achy Obejas first won a NEA grant for her poetry in 1986 —
6. — As good as life gets —
7. — Love, Ted —
8. — Many thought that Ivor Gurney’s claim to be ‘England’s first war poet’ was a symptom of his insanity —

My mom is intensive care again, so I may stop blogging (without much notice).

Poetry News:

1. — Political rhymes: duple meter vs. iambic pentameter —
2. — the Grand Prize for inspired concept and execution goes to… —
3. — Joe Torre Haiku Contest —
4. — Poet awarded $75,000 fellowship —
5. — This lies at the very heart of Ted Hughes’s vision of life, and made him a much more appropriate laureate for the Thatcher years than sad old Larks in his cycle-clips. —
6. — [ha that kid plagiarized a Tom Lehrer song] —
7. — a sharp reminder that poetry is not merely good thoughts well expressed —
8. — “Evasive Idealism” Handicaps Our Literature; Ellen Glasgow Declares That the American Public Demands Sham Optimism Instead of Straightforward Facing of Life’s Facts By Joyce Kilmer —
9. — Poet Paul Muldoon and Jacki Lyden discover Finnegan’s musicality as they listen to an archival recording of James Joyce reading from his final novel —

FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

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Poetry News:

1. — There’s this idea he was a stern, reclusive, hard man, but, in fact, he was great company, he loved gossip and he’s not the Ted Hughes that people have in their imaginations at all —
2. — Kerouac, baseball and Denver —
3. — Poet Thomas Sayers Ellis will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, for Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences —
4. — Winners of The Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation —
5. — Poet Jayne Cortez makes heady music with Ornette Coleman sidemen —
6. — Hopkins Marks 30th Anniversary of ‘Callaloo’ —
7. — I have this crazy idea that if (Samuel Taylor) Coleridge were a woman born in the middle of the 20th century, born in northern Maine without an opium addiction, he might be Dorianne Laux —

I think if a poet is going to write about something they haven’t experienced, either as a persona poem or not (I’m thinking here of mental illness, psych hospitals & other physical incarceration specifically in this case but it can also apply to sexism, racism etc i guess) then it is not something to be taken lightly & should be approached with vigilance, for it is a difficult thing to make a poem ring true 100% (in any case) & indeed at the worst, these attempts can meander into the cheap and the exploitative.

That being said, I think you should go for it. I’d be the last person to tell someone what s/he should write about. Because that makes me mad! I have no problem with poets writing persona poems etc — I love them. Ai is one of my favorite poets.

One should examine the motivation(s) for writing such a poem, however, I think. Because the reader can’t. (Though sometimes the poet’s motivation can be illuminated by the poem with more clarity than the poet is aware of! Or tragically misconstrued.) What do you think?

Anyway, have some ee cummings:

Humanity i love you

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you

Poetry News:

1. — The early letters of the future poet laureate reveal many of his lifelong obsessions, from furry animals to the occult, mostly in a financially anxious form —
2. — More to the point, they seem to fill a gap left increasingly by magazines, which rarely publish this type of material anymore —
3. — That Canadians would have no access to works of our own imagination just seemed goofy —
4. — In her Foreword to the book, noted poet Alice Ostriker writes that Farrokhzad belongs in the company with Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Plath, and Sexton —
5. — Midwest Poet Series turns 25 —
6. — He told his father, who expected him to become a scientist, that he was going to be a poet, and headed to the local library —
7. — Charles Simic on Good Morning America (TV) —
8. — Poem of the Week No. 3: Lewis Carroll —
9. — Berry’s new collection, “Window Poems,” is a series he composed while looking out the window of his writing cabin —
10. — Language as Sculpture, Words as Clay —
11. — Poetry, like wisdom, is above all price; it is either worth everything or nothing; yet, as poetry is not, like poets born, but made, those who make it very naturally desire to sell it, and the great difficulty has been, heretofore, to ascertain its market, or commercial value —
12. — New Lit Mag Alert —
13. — Making art of ‘Industrial Scars’ —

Yeah, I guess that might work here. Your robber would be so mentally disturbed by you ignoring him while you festoon yourself into a freaking FABRIC VENDING MACHINE.

My plan: palm an Alka-Seltzer at all times when in risky areas.

Bad guy comes up, pop it in your mouth, and act like a rabid and possessed animal as thick white froth pours down your chin.

Make lots of large, cat-like, limb motions. Scream, hiss, and bark. Toss in a few laughs. Look and point to something behind him. (His head will turn) RUN!! at a right angle from where you were, and then quickly switch into the direction where he was looking.

Ha my sister cracks me up. We were discussing this.

Thanks for the birthday good wishes. We had a fun day. That movie was funny. (It’s up at you tube.) Barbara Stanwyck had some great outfits. And there was one of the funniest poker game scenes.