- — Poem of the week: The Waste Land by TS Eliot —
- — The trick was trusting that impulse again when I went to finish the poem, picking it up from where I’d left it and catching that same vibe, like a wave, and riding it out. —
- — something is fishy here — possibly the same phenomenon MJ Rose points to in her continuing tally of male vs. female representation in Oprah’s Book Club (current tally: of the 19 book club titles Oprah has chosen since 2003, 17 are by men) —
- — Dylan Down the Ups will be a series of street parties to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the birth of the poet in the front bedroom of his parents’ home —
- — Though now regarded as a forefather of modern American poetry, Whitman was once reviled by the New England literati. —
- — Reviews of New Fiction, Poetry, Mystery, Science Fiction and Comics — Publishers Weekly, 10/19/2009 —
- — Poets gathered for a discussion on the nature of abstract poetry last week. —
- — As the number of newly-minted MFAs in creative writing continues to climb, it’s not unreasonable to ponder why the degree exerts a pull on writers. —
- — Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Diamonds in the Dark [mp3] —
- — Adult content warning: beware fairy stories —
- — The fairytale of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Joyce Crick —
- — Wicked parents in fairytales Hilary Mantel looks at fairytale step-parenting and sees its echoes today —
- — The fairytale of Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm —
- — The fairytale of Cinderella by Charles Perrault, translated by Angela Carter —
- — The fairytale of the Tinderbox by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Naomi Lewis —
- — The fairytale of Mossycoat, an English folk tale, retold by Philip Pullman —
- — Rags to Riches in fairytales Philip Pullman looks at the power of symbolism in fairytales —
- — The fairytale of the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Naomi Lewis —
- — The fairytale of the Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Naomi Lewis —
- — The fairytale of Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Joyce Crick —
- — Love in fairytales AS Byatt looks at the abstract world in Fairytales
— - — The fairytale of the boy who set out to learn fear by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Joyce Crick —
- — The fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Joyce Crick —
- — The fairytale of the Sleeping Prince retold by Alison Lurie —
- — The fairytale of the Lion and the Hare retold from Sanskrit by Ramsay Wood —
- — Adam Phillips looks at the concept of quests in fairytales —
- — The fairytale of Jack and the Beanstalk by Joseph Jacobs —
- — The fairytale of the Black Geese retold by Alison Lurie —
- — The fairytale of clever Gretchen retold by Alison Lurie —
- — The fairytale of the Mixed-Up Feet and the Silly Bridgegroom, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, retold by Elizabeth Shub —
- — Alison Lurie looks at wisdom and folly in fairytales —
- — The fairytale of the Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Naomi Lewis —
- — The fairytale of the Fisherman and Ifrit from the Arabian Nights, translated by Malcom C Lyons —
- — The fairytale of Red Riding Hood by Charles Perrault, translated by AE Johnson —
- — The fairytale of the one-handed murderer by Italo Calvino, translated by George Martin —
- — Justice and punishment in fairytales. Sarah Churchwell looks at the consequences of fairytale sins —
- — John Harris: I can’t lament the demise of nursery rhymes when my three-year-old sings rock’n'roll classics instead —
- — The fairytale of Hans My Hedgehog by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes —
- — The fairytale of the Heart of a Monkey retold by Andrew Lang —
- — The fairytale of Beauty and the Beast by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont —
- — Marina Warner looks at the role animals play in fairytales —
- — Wyatt Prunty explains why reports of poetry’s death have been greatly exaggerated —
- — Kunitz bequest an opportunity —
- — On Poetry: Keep poets out of palaces and make work accessible —
- — Listed status for poet’s shelter —
- — Ms. Olds will answer questions in the middle of reading from her work, a practice she prefers. “She considers a reading to be experiential rather than academic,” Professor Yelin said. “She really pours herself out.” —
- — Do You Believe in Magic? {congrats} —
- — Dharma Poetry: Mahmoud Darwish —
- — The Last Poet To Win The Nobel Prize —
- — Experience, including “first book,” changes one’s life. But every book begins in the nowhere. —
- — narrative poetry, an essay —
- — I was about to say that I don’t understand how people can get upset at a lowly little poetry magazine that runs at a loss for the love of the game — but I guess I do understand. —
- — Decimal Points: Poems, play recall mill workers’ lives —
- — Found: Dorothy Parker poem reveals pain of rejection —
- — THE WAR THAT KILLED ACHILLES The True Story of Homer’s “Iliad” and the Trojan War —
- — Winners of Library of Virginia awards —
- — One of the few Nunavik Inuit to ever publish poetry has died. —
- — Writers share the rituals of writing — or not —
- — Poet Jimmy Santiago Baca’s first novel is a mess, a powerful, glorious mess. —
- — Sherman Alexie’s latest collection is fierce, snappy, occasionally funny and always surprising. —
haha Tennessee Titans 0 – New England Patriots 59
Poetry News For October 9, 2009
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Oct 092009
- — A poet, Tran Duc Thach, was also jailed for three years followed by three years’ house arrest after a trial on Wednesday in Hanoi —
- — Kenneth Rexroth: Songs of Love, Moon & Wind, and a Bashô Haiku Challenge Update —
- — Herta Müller takes the Nobel prize for literature —
- — Critics have linked Walden to George Moses Horton (about whom I wrote briefly here), not only because both were born into slavery — in the same state — but also because both became poets before literate. —
- — Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart Now, Rilke —
- — And speaking of Mark Young (and as the allegrezza ficcione also attests), he’s one of those erudite poets whose repute is actually based on his poems, rather than his erudition. I mean, I do notice how many poets out there get up-status due to their scholarship — I respect scholarship but that doesn’t necessarily translate to poetic prowess. —
- — For real, all one has to do is read Arc & Hue to know that Betts is a REAL poet. —
- — Poetry corner – One Night – Carol Ann Duffy’s Poetry Corner —
- — What is your poetry supposed to do? —
- — Does Herta Müller’s victory at today’s Nobel ceremony reveal a European bias among the committee? —
- — Poetry Prescription Forms, Only for Licensed Poets —
- — Poetry workshop: heroes and heroines – Glyn Maxwell is impressed by the praise poems submitted for his National Poetry Day-themed workshop —
- — 20th century modernist famed for The Waste Land tops poll. —
- — In Times Square, poets multiply —
- — Why Don’t Aspiring Writers Read More Literary Magazines? —
My friend Jessica Handler will be at the Southern Festival of Books tomorrow, Saturday, at 1pm in the Senate Chambers. She’ll be with Neil White, author of “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts” and they’ll be talking about “The Watershed Moment” in memoir.
I’m back I think. In another clinical study – I think it is helping. 
- — WCBN Living Writers with T Hetzel – interview with Henry Grimes [mp3] —
- — Oh, Walt Whitman, And Jeans, and Walt Whitman —
- — Poetry is rubbish. —
- — Here some famous writers, looking sensitive: Exhibit A, B, C, D, E. —
- — Poetic Form: Sevenlings —
- — Brian Turner, a poet and former infantry team leader in Iraq, has been awarded the 2009-10 Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship —
- — The poet as the letter ‘I’ —
- — Poem of the week: Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar —
- — Chappell Invents Fresh Form with ‘Shadow Box’ —
- — The Last Days of The Writer Jim Carroll —
- — Dharma Poetry: Jane Hirshfield —
- — C. Dale Young —
- — ‘Smell of space’ strong, metallic and unique —
- — The World According to Philip Levine —
- — 40 poets, including McHugh, have received MacArthur Fellowships since the MacArthur Foundation began offering them in 1981. Here they are, from least recent to most recent recipient —
- — Then she started singing and stopped making sense —
- — Weekly Poem: ‘Erasers’ from Poetry | NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS Mary Jo Salter [mp3] —
- — TS Eliot rejected Bloomsbury group’s ‘cursed fund’ to work in bank —
- — Hockey poetry? Check. [ok that made me laugh] —
- — Former poet laureate Robert Hass discusses the power of poetry, particularly during times of great loss and confusion. [mp3] —
- — Kafka — and Eraserhead — can make you smarter: Study says surrealism can improve learning by compelling the brain to seek out structure —
- — Poetry and Information Are NOT free —
- — Poet’s Wordplay Leads To MacArthur ‘Genius’ Award —
- — Tracy K. Smith: “Alternate Take: Levon Helm” —
- — An award-winning University of Maryland professor who founded the school’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing has been named the state’s poet laureate. —
Jul 132009
- — SOUTHERN LITERATURE.; Facts about Southern Authors. November 12, 1865, Wednesday —
- — For the first time in its ten-year history, Drunken Boat is offering the chance to get email-delivered updates. —
- — Like dangerous toys or perilous amusement park rides, Matthea Harvey’s poems careen into the unknown… [mp3] —
- — Thom Gunn’s “Selected Poems” shows his development was steadier than often thought. —
- — The handful of his poems in the anthology stuck with me over the years since, poems of gritty working-class grappling with life, an unsentimental warmth, and at times nightmare visions of the political events of the larger world. —
- — The poetry of Fred Marchant explores literal battles as well as those of the mind and spirit. —
- — This gives some suggestion of the scale on which Stone has been working for the past 50 years: at one end, something as tangible as a spider’s web; at the other, the entire cosmos. —
- — Mass. lawmakers weigh creating poet laureate post —
- — ‘Deep in my heart I see poetry as a branch of the entertainment industry. I’m trying to do a song and dance act’ —
- — Dolly Parton poems @ Project Verse —
- — ha —
- — The afternoon before Michael Jackson died, David Blair told BTL how his poetry collection would unite life in Detroit and the Jackson family. —
- — St. Clair Shores poet and Wayne State University professor M.L. Liebler has received double literary honors for his 2008 book —
- — Poet, 80, has first book published —
- — Writer, Poet Jim Harrison Is a Determined ‘Outsider’ from Poetry | NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS [mp3] —
- — The poems of Grand Rapids poet Robert VanderMolen are sly, ingeniously crafted and indebted to film as well as to 20th century poets. —
- — Campaign to protect Margate shelter where TS Eliot wrote The Waste Land —
- — Daniel Radcliffe revealed as a budding poet —
- — The Poetry of Dick Cheney —
- — Remixed Messages —
- — Stop for a sonnet before catching bus —
- — Nashville poetry calendar new —
- — Paul Hemphill, whose 1970 nonfiction work The Nashville Sound was one of the first serious popular studies of country music and stands among the most important books ever written on the subject, died Saturday in hospice care in Georgia. —
- — Tennyson was ideally suited to radio, argues Michael Symmons Roberts, who has adapted his epic Arthurian cycle for broadcast —
- — Hundreds memorialize James Baker Hall —
- — Does God Hate Women? —
- — Piercy’s latest collection, The Crooked Inheritance, features poems on the U.S. occupation of Iraq , health care, “the poet as a young nerd”, hospital hallways, and mangoes at the beginning of a new love affair. [mp3] —
- — Carol Ann Duffy : ‘I was told to get a proper job’ —
Poetry News For May 25, 2009
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May 252009
- — Poet cornered: Ruth Padel fights to keep Oxford post over tip-offs about her rival and A male poet wouldn’t have been blamed for rough tactics: Ruthless power plays in academia are as common as good wine and Oxford’s top poet urged to quit for sex slurs against literary rival —
- — It measures, perhaps, the success of New Formalism’s self-serving argument that writing in meter is difficult that Joel Brouwer (“Poetry Chronicle,” April 26) should be astonished to the point of italics at the news that J. D. McClatchy spoke an iambic pentameter line in his sleep. —
- — Why do women defend Walcott? —
- — BBC plans to send poet to Afghanistan battlefields —
- — Litterbug released after 4 years in jail —
- — The lousy economy might be bad for artists when it comes to paying rent, but after a decade of record prices — and what some might call wretched excess — it might actually be good for art. —
- — Film Made About Rebellious Chilean Poetess and —
- — Wee row erupts over old Robbie: Town resists call to remove statue —
- — Sunday Poetry for the New Moon Jupiter/Chiron/Neptune conjunction —
- — Poet’s Choice by Paul Otremba: ‘In an Adirondack With You’ by Paul Otremba —
- — Frederick Seidel has spent the last half-century being the darkest and strangest sort of poet. —
- — People By Nature Are Universally Optimistic, Study Shows —
- — A few years ago I used baseball as a metaphor to lament the lack of an amateur/professional split within the poetry world: no one thinks they have to be a major leaguer to have fun taking hacks at the batting cage, but for some reason the idea of being an amateur poet and having fun in the same way with words strikes us as embarrassing. —
- — French artist Bernard Pras (scroll for biography) arranges everyday objects, then photographs them at such an angle as to recreate iconic portraits and artworks. —
- — APSU literature professor to read his work in Nashville —
- — So, just to be clear, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as we have come to call it, is an untitled poem written by an unknown author in about 1400. It is 2,530 lines long and written in Middle English. —
- — Two engaging books in distinct styles and voices — clearly from male and female perspectives — experience our shared world, but translate it through individual visions worthy of a wide readership. —
- — Ros, who died in 1939, abused (some would say, tortured) the English language in three novels and dozens of poems. you can read some poems here —
- — Campbell McGrath’s anti-Tweet —
- — Doomed to neglect were any films the jury doubtless deemed too conventional and/or too warm. These included “Bright Star,” Jane Campion’s exceptionally intimate and restrained examination of the tragic romance of poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, and “Looking for Eric,” a genial change-of-pace for British director Ken Loach. —
- — The National Library of New Zealand is seeking nominations for the 2009-2011 New Zealand Poet Laureate Award. —
- — Poets of the Central Committee of the Writers Union of Korea produced more than 100 poems and words of songs encouraging the army and people by conducting dynamic creative activities in the seething reality. —
- — Computer scientist to ‘unroll’ papyrus scrolls buried by Vesuvius —
- — Rafael Escalona, 81, Folk Musician and Balladeer of Colombia, Is Dead —
- — The Futurists: masters of outrage who embraced the new —
- — Peter Sacks finds common themes between the paintings of Edward Hopper and the works of poets such as Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and TS Eliot. [mp3] —
- — Researchers mine millions of metaphors through computer-based techniques —
- — Joe Milford Show: John Poch is poetry editor of the journal 32 Poems. His first book, Poems (Orchises Press), appeared in 2004. His work has appeared in many journals, and in 2004, he was a Howard Nemerov Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He teaches at Texas Tech University. —
- — Conferences, Festivals Taking a Hit —
- — The Jane Crown Show: Lyn Lifshin —
- — “If the occupation is afraid of a literature festival,” he said, addressing the elephant in the room of literature buffs and the culturally inclined, “than they are very fragile indeed.” —
- — In this essay Gary muses on how a poem or in
this case how a poem fragment works, complete with excellent illustrations. — - — How did you and your publishers decide that now was the time for your “Collected Poems”? —
- — The end of an era in American letters —
- — Recently, I’ve been reading through Jim Elledge’s Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock & Roll in American Poetry.” —
- — Anna Journey’s first book of poems, “If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting” (University of Georgia Press: 104 pp., $16.95 paper), is a deeply American debut —
Have you noticed lately that people are acting ugly all of a sudden out of the blue? I’m not sure what to make of it. Maybe I’m just being in the wrong time at the wrong place.
Poetry News For March 30, 2009
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Mar 302009
- — Literary tattoos abound —
- — Stein once wrote that all her poetry is “children’s poetry.” —
- — “By changing the poem, you change the world,” said Benmergui. —
- — Craft and bravura mix well here, as they do in Gunn, and Mann shows himself his mentor’s apt pupil. —
- — Academic press gives Dylan a spin —
- — The Genius of Ishmael Reed —
- — Poet sees Motown stars as `super- human figures’ in his work —
- — TS Eliot’s snort of rejection for Animal Farm —
- — Tsvetaeva’s rhythm certain sounds marked, and very attractive, and poignant, and, when sung, as in the clip, it is pure soul. —
Uriel Jones, go-to drummer for Motown, dies
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