Poetry News:

1. — What The “Subprime Poetry Crisis” Means For The Overheated Metap[h]or Market —
2. — Poster poems: The rhythm of the falling rain —
3. — Wordplay with Pat Reviere-Seel and Jessica Newton [MP3] —
4. — A report on the new poet laureate of the U.S. A question from Yemen about Emily Dickinson. And poetry set to music, on a new album from France’s first lady, Carla Bruni. —
5. — This story of a wife’s betrayal and her husband’s fidelity unto death stings me with the awareness that small, unnoticed nobility endures in our midst —
6. — Poets, we think, can’t help but be poets and do poet-ish things. —

McCain’s Economic Plan For Nation: ‘Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress’ (ONN)

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. — If birds come from something as bizarre as a smooth ovoid container with no exit or entry, then it’s not too far of a stretch to imagine that the backbone of a corpse becomes a snake —
2. — WordPlay - WPVM: Celebrating Jonathan Williams [links to MP3] —
3. — 2008 National Magazine Award Finalists —
4. — Interview with poet Mark Doty:A poet who goes from “Fire to Fire” & Mark Doty Video at Split This Rock —
5. — Editors Kathryn Stripling Byer and Marilyn Kallet gathered contributions from 52 female writers —
6. — Posthumously published, these poems by one of the great masters of the short story deal largely with aging and death —
7. — The sense of unknowing you feel at the end of a poem is not something you get and then get over. —
8. — Bishop’s poetry takes up about the first third of this Library of America volume; the rest is prose of varying kinds and interest — fiction and memoir, travel and literary pieces, translations and correspondence, some published for the first time —

Lest you think I’m not an idiot, I am. Before I even got my MFA I sent a poetry manuscript out to poetry contests. Even now that I’m wised up about poetry contests, there are some presses that I really like so I enter to support them (NMP’s chapbook contest deadline is coming up FYI). So yeah, I’m a hypocrite.

Thursday I’m meeting with the folks at the Vanderbilt Division of Medical Genetics. Wish me luck. I don’t know what to expect, though I know where they will be heading. Unfortunately, I’m in a lot of pain these days & didn’t help things when I slipped Saturday & fcked up my r. hip. Note to self: do not taunt Pluto.

Poetry News:

1. — Five years after Ruth Lilly’s $100 million gift to the Poetry Foundation, a mixed verdict —
2. — Singer gives Dickinson’s verse a new voice —
3. — Big brother is reading your poetry —
4. — University of Arkansas Press Poetry Book Wins Virginia Literary Award —
5. — Long-lost Blake watercolours shown for 1st time —
6. — William Matthews Birthday podcast with Sebastian Matthews too [links to MP3 at WPVM] —
7. — Jessica Smith podcast [links to MP3 at WPVM] —

Kate Light is reading tonight at Vanderbilt, Nashvillians.

Hedy Lamarr has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, as an historical honorary member.

Yay! A bass poem! I’m still trying for the definitive Bootsy Collins poem. Someday.