Happy Halloween, Happy Birthday, John Keats October 31, 2007: Keats owns autumn, as this post by Ange reminds us. Every Halloween I think also of Keats since this is his birthday. His last poem, which breaks off rather than ends, is appropriately "haunting": This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy [...] by A.E. Stallings

on connotation October 31, 2007: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes words can be replaced, without loss, by any synonym or dictionary defintion. In poetry, though-- and in many cases outside poetry-- connotation matters: the force a word has includes the force of its associations, the emotions and situations we associate with its prior uses, the cloud of light or [...] by Stephen Burt

Wednesday Shout Out October 31, 2007: Believe it or not, it’s a coincidence that this particular book cover made my Shout Out feature on Halloween. This is cult poet Beckian Fritz Goldberg’s fifth volume of poems. Though she was on faculty at Arizona State University while I was attending their MFA program, regretfully I never studied with her, but I read everything she publishes [...] by Rigoberto González

In Praise of Online Journals October 28, 2007: About a month ago, the National Book Critics Circle sponsored a panel on the demise of the print journal and the rise of the online journal. Actually, it was a little more complex than that, but the gist of the conversation was this: that libraries and other institutions with diminishing budgets were cutting back on (or eliminating altogether) [...] by Rigoberto González

The Audiatur Festival 2007 October 28, 2007: Approximately a month ago, around the end of September, I flew to Bergen, Norway, in order to perform at the Audiatur Festival—a multilingual extravaganza for the avant-garde, at which many celebrated performers of both phonically-based poetry and constraint-based poetry attended, including the likes of Tomomi Adachi (from Japan), Caroline [...] by Christian Bök

Ochi Day October 28, 2007: Today is a national holiday in Greece, the day when Greeks celebrate the word "No!" (more...) by A.E. Stallings

Quick Review 08 October 27, 2007: ----------------- "Prose took the minstrel's verse without a squeeze His exaltation shocked both youth and crone The understanding critic firstly sees 'Ere meanings new to ancient tribes are thrown They both are right not untamed mutterings That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave They both are right not unformed smatterings That every verbal [...] by Christian Bök

Postcard from nowhere: airports and assumptions October 27, 2007: Why are there so few good poems about air travel? And are there any great ones? Is it just that it has been around for public transport less time than boats or trains or even automobiles? I can think of terrific poems about all of these, but only a brace of air travel poems spring to my mind, both about the attendant misery of airports, among [...] by A.E. Stallings

am I an americanist? October 26, 2007: Odd encounter at a conference today (not the one Ange's been blogging, but a much smaller one): Scholar of contemporary culture, film and fiction #1 (pointing at me): "Is he an Americanist?" Scholar of contemporary culture, film and fiction #2: "He's a poetry person." Was that a version of "No"? If not, what was it? (more...) by Stephen Burt

Quick Review 07 October 26, 2007: ----------------- "Sonnet for Bonnie" from Nicholodeon by Darren Wershler-Henry Coach House Books, 1997 ----------------- (more...) by Christian Bök