Craig Santos Perez

Teachability, Pedagogy, and Why You Can Easily Find My Book At Used Bookstores

so some say that poetry is dead because it stays within the academic classroom, overlooking how important the classroom is to creating lifelong poetry readers / writers, as well as how important course adoption is to keeping books alive and relevant and in print.

when i design a syllabus, i try to choose books that i think will engage and challenge my students. while at the native american literature symposium this past weekend, i began to think about this process more because i kept hearing an interesting word at many of the panels. this word was….

03.10.10 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5)

Sina Queyras

To Sonnet, to Son-net, Tuscon Net

Recently Geist Magazine, one of the great Canadian magazines, announced a contest for the best “Jackpine Sonnet.” The Jackpine sonnet was named by Canadian poet Milton Acorn. It’s a fairly regular sonnet that aims for the traditional 14 lines, each line con­tain­ing 7 to 13 syl­la­bles, but, in Acorn’s words, “If your son­net cuts itself off—click!—at, say line 12, 18 or 20, leave it at that.” As for rhyme, “Acorn advised writ­ers to write inter­nal rhymes (rhymes within a line) or exter­nal rhymes (rhymes at the end of con­sec­u­tive lines) ‘to keep the flow.’ In the absence of rhyme, use asso­nance (the rep­e­ti­tion of vowel sounds), ‘to keep the rhyme alive in order to come up with a true rhyme fur­ther on’…”

03.09.10 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (38)

Sotère Torregian

A Response to the Comments

03.08.10 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Craig Santos Perez

Conference Spotlight: Native American Literature Symposium

just returned from a weekend in albuquerque where i attended the Native American Literature Symposium (NALS), which is “organized by an independent group of indigenous scholars committed to making a place where Native voices can be heard.” the symposium was held at the Isleta Casino & Resort (apparently, this symposium has been held at various native owned venues throughout the years).

this year’s theme was “Many Voices, One Center,” and featured…

03.08.10 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

Kenneth Goldsmith

Marjorie Perloff Picks UbuWeb’s Top Ten for March 2010

Photo: Emma Bee Bernstein

1. Ernst Jandl, Bist eulen?
2. William Kentridge – Stereoscope
3. Samuel Beckett – Quadrat 1+2
4. Cheryl Donegan – Refuses
5. VerbiVocoVisual Concrete Poetry and Music (1956-1970)
6. Merce Cunningham – Points in Space (1986)
7. Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt – Mono Lake
8. Caroline Bergvall, Via and About Face
9. Derek Beaulieu -”an afterword after words: notes towards a `concrete poetic” [PDF]
10. Öyvind Fahlström – Manifesto for Concrete Poetry (1952-55)

Marjorie Perloff co-edited with Craig Dworkin THE SOUND OF POETRY/THE POETRY OF SOUND (Chicago, 2009).  Her UNORIGINAL GENIUS: POETRY BY OTHER MEANS IN THE NEW CENTURY will be published in Fall 2010.

UbuWeb can be found at http://ubu.com

03.07.10 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Sina Queyras

Poetry podcasts, online resources, oh and introducing Canada a wee bit more

There may not be much poetry to read on my iPod, but there is a lot of poetry to listen to. So, if you’re a gym rat, you can take a variety of poetic journeys ranging from recorded readings, to discussions of poetry, to lectures. This is the upside to all of our technological upheaval. At least one of them. I’ll offer a few of my favourite regular podcasts, and highlights.

03.06.10 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (13)

Craig Santos Perez

Chapbook Spotlight: Calaveras

i heart chapbooks, especially chapbooks made with love. a new project that i am excited about is Calaveras, edited by sara mumolo & alisa heinzman. their first journal is quite innovative: it includes a series of 7 chapbooks (featuring poetry, essays, and interviews from 27 aesthetically and culturally diverse writers), wrapped together in a sleeve. i enjoy this format because it presents a lot of great work in easy to digest/carry chapbooks. buy your copy here.

q&a with the editors:

1) why did you start calaveras?

Alisa Heinzman (AH): I think our first conversation about doing this project together was really about bookmaking, what types of book design we like, and how fun it is to make books. I had the great pleasure of helping sew and put together some of Octopus Book’s chapbooks when I was an undergraduate in Nebraska, and it’s something I’ve missed the last couple years. When Sara mentioned she was interested in doing an editorial print project I was so excited. Something about handmade or homemade books feels very important to me right now.

Sara Mumolo (SM): Alisa and I worked together when I edited MARY magazine in graduate school.  She was the Asst. Poetry Editor while I was there, and now she is the Poetry Editor there.  The prospect of doing something together of our own originating, a publication without a specific history to succeed proved irresistible.  My hope is that CALAVERAS gives readers pleasure and that it emphasizes community by the production of multiple books with poems in conversation.

03.03.10 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)