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Delicious Advice for Aspiring Poets
From the inimitable Wisława Szymborska, Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet who produced a column for a newspaper called Literary Life. She answered letters from everyday people who wanted to write poetry—a sort of “Dear Wisława” relationship that she handled with intelligence, humor, and care. Here are a few selections from her column, translated by Clare Cavanagh and courtesy of The Poetry Foundation.Read More
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Interview with Maryka Gillis
IN THE SPIRIT of naked self-promotion, I invite you to read Maryka Gillis’s interview with me at Folded Word.Read More
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Video from the Jaipur Literature Festival/Boulder
I had the pleasure of moderating the first panel discussion on the first day of the Jaipur Literature Festival/Boulder, which ran September 19-20 at the Boulder Public Library. The event attracted some 6,000 visitors over the two days, which is pretty remarkable. Our panel, consisting of Eleni Sikelianos, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, and Vijay Seshadri, addressed the topic of “The Poetic Imagination” with verve and good humor. Because it went so well, I’m pleased to say that the Jaipur Literature Festival/Boulder folks have released videos of many sessions from the Festival, ours included. You can click below to watch it.Read More
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Jaipur Literature Festival, Boulder (Free to All!)
Panel Discussion on “The Poetic Imagination” Saturday, September 19 @ 10:45 am – 11:30 pm I’m excited to be moderating a panel at the first traveling edition of the venerable Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), the world’s largest free-and-open-to-all literary event. Most events will take place at the Boulder Public Library, Boulder Public Library, 1001 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302. Click here for a map to the library.Read More
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Carl Sandburg in Colorado Springs
Attention, fans of Carl Sandburg: “Prayers for the People: Carl Sandburg and the Sunburnt West” will take the stage at Colorado College’s Cornerstone Arts Center. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. and is free to the public. Produced by Kate Benzel, professor emeritus of English at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, and David Mason, Colorado’s poet laureate, the evening will include poetry from Sandburg and Mason, folk songs from Sandburg’s “The Great American Songbag” performed by regional artists Mike Adams and Sons and Brothers Trio, and narration by Charles Peek. More here.Read More
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The Authorities…
This captures the uncomfortable feeling I get every time I see Mitt Romney open his puppet mouth. “Do you know Schwarzer?” asked K. “No,” replied the Mayor. “Perhaps you know him, Mizzi? You don’t know him either? No, we don’t know him.” “That’s strange,” said K.; “he’s a son of one of the under-castellans.” “My dear Land-Surveyor,” replied the Mayor, “how on earth should I know all the sons of all the under-castellans?” “Right,” said K.; “then you’ll just have to take my word that he is one.Read More
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Adios, Louis Simpson
It was saddening to read this morning of Louis Simpson’s death. His sensibility was Cheever-esque, arising from the vexed heart of suburban America, that spiritually islanded life so similar to the one he’d lived as a youth in Jamaica. Louis Simpson My favorite anecdote about Simpson, the truth of which I can’t swear to, comes from his early years of teaching at Berkley. He’d earned a Ph.D at Columbia and was quietly ensconced in the English Department, where he was glad to lead a semi-reclusive existence.Read More
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Edward Field’s “Writing for Money”
WRITING FOR MONEY by Edward Field My friend and I have decided to write for money, he stories, I poems. We are going to sell them to magazines and when the cash rolls in he will choose clothes for me that make me stylish and buy himself a tooth where one fell out. Perhaps we will travel, to Tahiti maybe. Anyway we’ll get an apartment with an inside toilet and give up our typing jobs. That’s why I’m writing this poem, to sell for money.Read More
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A World of Things
Bill Knott asks some important (to the extent that poetry is important) questions here and here. His focus is Objectivism (the Zukofsky/Williams/Reznikoff/Oppen Objectivism, not the hilariously stupid “philosophy” cooked up by that maven of selfishness, Ayn Rand), one of the root assumptions of which is the notion that content doesn’t matter. In fact, Objectivist poetry exalted a world of things, a world without meaning—except for the significance imposed upon it by the poet.Read More
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A Secret Feast
I bought the Lebanese poet Joumana Haddad‘s Invitation to a Secret Feast: Selected Poems for three reasons. First, the book’s title is beguiling; second, the selection is edited and partially translated by Khaled Mattawa, whose work as a poet and translator I’ve admired for some time; third, she is associated with the Shiir magazine group whose tutelary presence was Adonis (Ali Ahmad Sa’id), a man who in my humble opinion should have been awarded the Nobel Prize years ago. Haddad defies every common American stereotype of Arabic women.Read More