Continuous Texts June 12, 2007: I'm no big fan of E-Poetry, but I do love code poetry. Here's a great example of code poetry by Lance Wakeling, who's been logging every word he types for a year with a keylogger as his conceptual writing practice: [sic]--notes from a keylogger The piece is related to Charles Bernstein's poems that he made by transcribing word for word the [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

Samaritans? June 12, 2007: Kwame, I swear your life is just cooler than other people's. There you are, crisscrossing the landscape, being rescued and inspired by benevolent strangers, ruminating on the ultimate rightness of the world. My experience on America's byways has been exactly the opposite. I've traveled cross country a couple of times n my life--Boston to L..A., [...] by Patricia Smith

Post-Partum Poetry Thought June 11, 2007: I think I will not write poems about the birth of my third son. I might be wrong, but I’d bet not. The birth itself was so real, present, calm, loving, right. What poem “needs” to be written about it or of/out of it or in it? Does that mean that I write poems in order to fix experiences? I have always found it annoying when people tell [...] by Rachel Zucker

Samaritans June 9, 2007: There are good Samaritans, but mostly there are people who can be kind and who happen to be there when you need a little help. There are holy people—the good Samaritans who go out of their way—but mostly, there are people who do their jobs and sometimes, because of our desperation, those jobs make them look like good Samaritans. Like the [...] by Kwame Dawes

The Carpenters! June 8, 2007: by Patricia Smith

Indicator Species June 8, 2007: Recently, a reporter (Travis Nichols) called to ask why we publish Jim Behrle on our website. “Because he’s an indicator species,” I answered. His question got me thinking about other people and organizations that are breaking a pattern and in so doing, pointing out the vibrancy of the poetry world and its insularity. Jim Behrle Until [...] by Emily Warn

The Carpenters! June 8, 2007: Kwame -- OH. MY. GOD. I can't believe we have something in common: The Carpenters! YES - yes yes - the Carpenters are #1 all-time in my book, in particular, the divine Karen. Karen Carpenter had by far, without a shadow of a doubt the best voice ever recorded! No one will ever come close to that angelic, pure, beautiful sound ever again. She was [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

Translating Again June 8, 2007: It might have been two months ago when I posted some thoughts about translation. At some point, I observed that it was possible for a good translator/poet to transform a bad poem into a beautiful poem in another language. I am sure this is not a profoundly original observation. I can’t imagine that the thought has ot crossed the mind of many [...] by Kwame Dawes

Hopkins and Me June 6, 2007: I have said I various places that my first real influence as a poet was Gerard Manley Hopkins, the British poet of “God’s Grandeur”, “Pied Beauty”, and “The Kingfisher”. Sometimes I have hesitated about admitting this influence because it can sound a tad quaint (black Jamaican school boy taken in by the work of a [...] by Kwame Dawes

And the award goes to… June 6, 2007: So the other night I did one of those trademark New York things that everyone else in the world imagines they want to do. It was an unsettling mingling of glamor and grit--women in gowns with actual trains, men who'd paid their stylists for grunge, ivory business cards, heply tossed expletives, white-jacketed waiters, d**k in a box, asparagus and [...] by Patricia Smith