Microtonal guitarist
Rod
has been murdered
Rod
with Nels Cline & Jim McCauley
Nate Dorward’s review
of The Acoustic Trio
Friday, May 18, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
John Chamberlain
at 80
§
Pianist
Andrew Hill
has died
§
All
of Ezra Pound’s
recorded poetry
downloadable
on MP3s
§
§
Can this really be
the first anthology
devoted entirely
to poems
about
§
Why literary awards can be useful
§
But when they don’t work:
Of the 1,006 words
Washington Post writer
Bob Thompson
uses to discuss
the “non-journalism” Pulitzers
awarded last week,
exactly 9
are devoted to poetry
Scott Timberg
of the LA Times
devotes
even fewer –
8 out of 692,
the first of which is
and
Jeffrey Burke
of Bloomberg News
devotes 51 words
from his allotment of
679
§
And when prizes do work:
More on the Pulitzer
for Ornette Coleman
§
Knopf took away
three Pulitzers
§
On the process
& politics
of the
Pulitzer for drama
§
§
The London Book Fair
&
the art of the deal
§
Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel,
”the Okie poet,”
has died
§
§
§
Anny Ballardini’s
extensive
Poet’s Corner
§
A profile of
James Weldon Johnson,
Paul Dunbar
&
Langston Hughes
§
Franz Douskey
is sometimes
the last to know
what he’s writing
§
Another article
on the potential demise
of
Women and Children First
§
At the
Atlanta Journal Constitution,
it’s the book review editor
that has been found
unnecessary
§
A profile of
Kathleen Peirce,
one of the
Guggenheim Nine
§
The writing of
Cho Seung-Hui
§
Using Cho’s videos
as an opportunity
to advertise
§
Trying to find
meaning
in
”axismael”
§
§
§
Some retro-jazz
and Billy Collins
§
A literacy program
for
the Prime Minister
§
Plus Dana & Laura
at a museum
named for Mr. Barnum
§
As good a defense
of Geoffrey Hill
as I’ve ever read
§
No academic publisher
left behind
§
Anglophilia
goes North
§
Trying to pair up
John Lennon
&
Kate Smith
for a duet
§
Impressionism
& the aging eye
§
How to think
about visual art
§
Return of the repressed:
abstraction is back
Friday, April 20, 2007
In Doubt a Rose Is a Grotesque Thing
The property line
extends to the
shore line
a dead otter
fish buoys
and driftwood.
I meant nothing by this remark.
In the interest of easing
erotic life. Fur and velvet.
In the attic
a scene of undressing
that describes the patient’s life
in the language of flowers.
This was the first assertion
of her still uninhibited animosity.
With an illusion to a gift or contagion.
As you know
this is the first time
I have regretted
meeting famous personalities
miles from home.
But instead I have chosen
to investigate cadavers
perhaps a hunting scene.
Because I was reared in a hothouse
a final euphemism:
The illusion did not last.
For more than a week
failing the obvious
I was fed up with memories.
This is much more than scenery.
In a waiting room
where a picture on a wall
could spell revenge.
If I may suppose
the scene of the kiss
took place in this way.
But it was not until
the incident by the lake
that we were encouraged
and forced to make confessions.
The younger of the two was the stranger.
In a seemingly endless, paranoid view
of events, I watched from a room I
knew too well on a slender
riotous island.
With his life and mind under daily dissection.
My libidinal compliment
just as one
might refer to
inner landscape.
She’d come east in a fashion
that rather took your breath away.
Aspiring to be
the originator of moments.
There is no need for discretion.
A tremendous attraction.
An elegant adversity.
I am a natural runner.
As if a rock hit you
several times
on the head.
Familiar as it may be.
A national betrayal.
A snap of cold weather.
A hard-luck story.
Hailed with a passion.
cultural critic &
visual arts curator
Nancy Shaw
died last week
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Allen Ginsberg
Gone ten years today
Scenes from Allen’s
Last Three Days on Earth
as a Spirit
by Jonas Mekas
1997
Saturday, March 17, 2007
First Screening:
bp Nichols’
computer poems
from 1984
in numerous formats
including Java
§
A “new” poem by
William Carlos Williams
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Talking with MartÃn Espada
(An MP3 of a reading
at Fox Lane High School)
§
Mary Ann Caws
on translation
§
Albert Mobilio
on interviewing as a process
§
Gabriel Garcia Márquez
versus
Mario Vargas Llosa
§
Jean Baudrillard’s Selected Writings
in PDF format
§
Remembering
a
§
The Supreme Court addresses
”Bong Hits 4 Jesus,”
a major free speech case
§
The Poetry Foundation
strikes back
in the form of
a David Orr
attack on the poetics of
The New Yorker
in the Sunday
New York Times
(Now, about the poetics of
The New York Times…)
§
The Poetry Foundation
also chooses a site
for a permanent home
§
A review of
The Grand Piano,
Part 2
§
Francine Prose
to lead PEN
§
George McWhirter,
poet laureate
§
Society for the History
of Authorship,
Reading & Publishing
is
S.H.A.R.P.
§
A national
Poetry Reading
bee?
§
A summer poetry workshop
in Scotland
that counts
Thomas A. Clark,
Susan Tichy,
&
Ken Cockburn
among the faculty
& includes trips to
Little Sparta
& the studio of
Andy Goldsworthy
§
§
The flurry of
”How to Read” books
get a close reading
§
Kaz Maslanka
explores
torque & Robert Creeley
complete with diagrams
§
Do Republicans write fiction
outside of the White House?
§
Troy Jollimore
is “stunned”
to receive
The National Book Critics Circle
Award
Jollimore,
who teaches philosophy
at Chico State,
may be the first
occasional blogger
to win such an award
His collection of
John Berryman imitations
was originally
selected for publication
by Billy Collins
§
The future of libraries
§
§
Patti Smith
on being inducted
into the Rock ‘n’ Roll
Hall of Fame
§
A poem only
Jack Gilbert
could have written
§
Mark Doty
gone to the dogs
§
§
§
Translating Emily
into other media
§
Scroll down
here
to vote for
The Oddest Book Title of the Year
§
Pretty Lessons in Verse
for Good Children
& the woman
who wrote them
§
Of the
C.K. Stead
§
Talking with Eavan Boland
§
Linda Myers
will retire
as executive director of
The Loft
§
§
The School of Quietude
goes to
the City University of New York
§
Sylvia
down under
§
Talking with
the Poet Laureate
of Connecticut
§
“The avant-garde was always
just the people
with the most energy”
§
Of critics
seeking bribes
§
“the length of time
that an average museum-goer
spends looking at a work of art –
nine seconds”
§
Rauschenberg’s transfer drawings
from the 1960s
§
Bruce Nauman § Saatchi, Stuart § Mark Spoelstra, § Noam Chomsky §
at the
in
& new Chinese artists
the best 12-string guitarist
I ever heard,
has passed on
on Bush & Iran
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Tom Devaney
on
Charles Bernstein
§
A remembrance
of Emmett Williams
& an interview
with same
§
§
Book sales are steady
but not in bookstores
§
§
§
“It’s been a long time
since I met
a young fanatic
for Pound or Zukofsky”
§
§
George Lewis
on the
Association for the Advancement
of Creative Musicians
§
A portrait
of John Ash
§
A portrait
of Rodney Jones
§
The Longfellow
bicentennial
gathers a little steam
§
Langdon Hammer
on
Paul Muldoon
§
Pinsky in Qatar
§
Viggo the poet,
Viggo the photographer
§
Spalding Gray’s
last work
§
Reading Frost
as a rugged individualist
§
Friedrich Nietzsche,
American idol
§
Tennessee Williams,
drama queen
§
James Michener,
writer or philanthropist
§
A conference on
the late Yemeni poet
Hussein Abu Baker Al-Mehdar
§
The center of the art world –
Liverpool
§
§
When around paintings,
think $$$
I mean, seriously
§
But ICA Boston
has its way
with CultureGrrl
§
Dia begins to fill
some holes
§
§
Corporate funding
for the arts
declines
§
O Alberta!
§
A new ABCs
for the arts
§
The scandal
o’er
”scrotum”
§
The case of the
plagiarized pianist
§
As languages dwindle
Saturday, February 17, 2007
A terrific anthology
of contemporary poetry
from
edited by Shin Yu Pai
7 poets
each with an interview,
& the poems
include a couple of sound files
and a video
realization
of Chen Li’s
War Symphony
§
The rest of
Fascicle 3
is no slouch either
with an Eritrean portfolio
including translations from
Tigrinya, Tigre & Arabic
poetry from over 50 poets,
new work by Alexei Parshchikov
(gotta wonder about that
translation strategy
tho),
whole chapbooks
by Allyssa Wolf
&
Vicente Huidobro,
work by Harry Crosby
plus an essay on Crosby
by D.H. Lawrence,
plus
Roberto Tejada on Clayton Eshleman,
Kevin Killian on George Oppen
Graham Foust on Looking
Mark Wallace on P. Inman
& oodles more
§
Also up online
with a ton of reviews
is the latest
Galatea Resurrects,
a magazine
done entirely in Blogger
§
Noisiest home page
for a new mag
goes to
Mad Hatters’ Review
Where Joe Amato
has some new poetry
&
Lynda Schor
offers an interview
& a “whatnot”
with tips on diapering
§
Artie Gold
one of
Vehicule poets
& a fine, fine fellow
died Wednesday
§
A praise day
in memory of
Diane Burns
§
§
What I like best
about this review
of the history of poets
at Harvard
is that the author
can’t spell
Charles Olson
§
Looking at the Booker
from the vantage
of
§
Vaclav Havel
in
§
Rodney Jones
wins
$100K poetry prize
§
§
Trying to forget
the dreariness of Auden
"in his cups"
in order to celebrate
the centennial
§
O Anna
Akhmatova!
§
The blindness
of Borges
§
Greg Tate
on
Bob Dylan
as the future of rap
§
§
Viggo, reading
§
If you thought Dan Brown
was dreadful,
wait till you read
the Dan Brown Wannabes
§
§
Fluffing your aura
to make it
even more real
§
The problems of conserving
contemporary painting
§
§
§
And if,
on March 2nd,
you should find yourself
in
at the AWP,
check this out: