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McWhirter Wins the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize
In the wake of my earlier post regarding my mentor George McWhirter’s arrival on the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize short list, there is this extraordinarily wonderful news from last night’s event in Toronto: George McWhirter wins $78,000 for the international prize for his translation of Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, written in Spanish by Mexican poet Homero Aridjis (New Directions Publishing).Read More
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Adios, Paul Auster
I came Paul Auster not through The New York Trilogy but through a skinny chapbook from Station Hill press called Facing the Music, published in 1980. It had goodbye woven all through it. Not “goodbye cruel world” but goodbye to poetry, which he’d been writing and publishing for a decade. It was his last standalone collection, and when I think of him now, I think of those 13 pages of valedictory verse. Poetry may address emptiness but it thrives in being. Auster needed prose to keep one foot firmly planted in each of those conditions.Read More
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My Poetic Mentor Makes the Griffin Prize Shortlist. Huzzah!
Vancouver poet and translator George McWhirter makes shortlist for $130K Griffin Poetry Prize CBC Books · Posted: Apr 17, 2024 8:47 AM MDT | Last Updated: April 18 Canadian translator George McWhirter is on the shortlist for the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize. (Mark Van Mannen) Canadian translator George McWhirter has made the shortlist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. He is recognized for Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, which was translated from Spanish and written by the great Mexican poet Homero Aridjis. The $130,000 prize is the world’s largest prize for a single book of poetry written in or translated into English. Read the full story here.Read More
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Click the Link at the End of This Letter to Combat Generative AI
Sign Our Open Letter to Generative AI Leaders AI models like ChatGPT owe their existence to the countless books, articles, essays, journalism, and other written works that are incorporated in the very fabric of the software. Using these original works in AI technologies without compensation or credit is inherently unfair, and potentially devastating for the writing profession. In response, the Authors Guild is asking members to sign an Open Letter to Generative AI Leaders calling on the CEOs of OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, and IBM to compensate writers fairly for the use of copyrighted materials in their generative AI programs.Read More
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Freedom to Read … and to Write
First, Nicole Sullivan, owner of The Bookies bookstore in Denver, explains why she’s thankful for the freedom to read and explains why we need to resist weakening our democracy’s commitment to that foundational ideal: https://sullivanic.substack.com/p/thankful-for-the-freedom-to-read Secondly, novelist and educator Janet Burroway details her travails in updating the fourth edition of her durable textbook, Imaginative Writing, to the new fifth edition. Her article is aptly titled “Slouching Toward Sensitivity,” a nod to both Yeats and Joan Didion.Read More
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Join Us for a PRATIK Launch Reading
I’m excited to be joining Yuyutsu RD Sharma, poet of the Himalayas, for the launch of the hot-off-the-press issue of PRATIK. I hope you’ll join us! Yuyutsu is a renowned poet from Nepal who has performed his work for audiences around the world. He is also the editor of PRATIK, a literary journal that has featured poets from dozens of countries, including Ireland, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Italy, and of course Nepal. Poets representing more discrete communities—from Los Angeles and Ottowa to the Basque region of Spain—have also appeared in its pages.Read More
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Gotta Love Tom Gauld
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Hear New Poetry from Cooperman & La Rocca on Saturday, July 1 at The Bookies
Two of my favorite poets will make your night on Saturday, July 1st, at The Bookies Bookstore.Read More
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History Makes Fascist Parents Flip Their Lids
Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the classic graphic novel Maus, continues to inspire panic among the repressive nitwits seeking to ban their children from learning about history.Read More
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Two Excellent Poets Reading from New Collections!
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
