Oskar Pastior October 16, 2007: Hearing music sets time free in the ear: the ear produces free time. This insight is the basis of lease-an-ear, a thriving service branch. The free time generated with the help of leased ears can be stored, for instance on tape, which constantly augments the sum of free time because nothing is ever lost. Last year alone, on a world scale, free [...] by Ange Mlinko

postcard from America: translation October 15, 2007: I apologize to my fellow bloggers for being a bit scarce. I've been travelling, and jet-lagged, and was just at the ALSC conference where I got to meet Harrieteers Emily Warn and Steve Burt. I've been thinking a lot about translation, not just because I was on a panel about poetry, philosophy, and translation, but because I have been in the act [...] by A.E. Stallings

Canine Poetica October 15, 2007: For a few years after I first moved to New York City I worked for two institutions in service to schoolchildren and to the arts: the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services After School Arts & Education Program, and for Teachers & Writers Collaborative. The first is located in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the second (with offices in Manhattan) sent me to [...] by Rigoberto González

Quick Review 06 (Even More Anagrams from Canada) October 14, 2007: ----------------- "Let's reconsider and test a basic linguistic principle. Language is a theory, an attempt to represent all aspects of life in something other than life. It is used to mutually describe and facilitate living. When it is off, as happens for all kinds of reasons, its capricious structuralism emerges. Ideas build upon [...] by Christian Bök

More Anagrams in Canada October 13, 2007: ----------------- TWO EQUAL TEXTS 1. THIS TEXT AND THE ONE BESIDE IT ARE EQUAL. I WROTE THIS ONE FIRST, AND THEN I GAVE IT TO MY FRIEND CHRISTIAN BOK AND ASKED HIM TO GENERATE A NEW TEXT USING EVERY LETTER AND EVERY PUNCTUATION MARK THAT I USED IN MINE. THE OTHER TEXT IS HIS. 2. MICAH LEXIER REQUESTED IN ADVANCE THAT I REINVENT HIS TEXT. SO I [...] by Christian Bök

Anagrams in Canada October 12, 2007: ----------- ten maps of sardonic wit atoms in space now drift on a swift and epic storm soft wind can stir a poem snow fits an optic dream into a scant prism of dew words spin a faint comet some words in fact paint two stars of an epic mind manic words spit on fate ----------- (more...) by Christian Bök

Youthful Forms October 12, 2007: Dear Steve, The coincidence of adolescence and the Norton's Anthology has ruined many a productive citizen, I think. I have sometimes heard the opposite claimed -- that teaching poetry in an academic setting ruins poetry, not adulthood, for kids. But I don't remember teachers shredding poems. I do remember leafing through classroom anthologies [...] by Ange Mlinko

Zoo Press: A Post-Mortem October 12, 2007: I just received my copy of Priscilla Sneff’s debut poetry collection O Woolly City published with Tupelo Press, the same press that graciously picked up my second collection Other Fugitives and Other Strangers. As many poets know, these two titles were two of about five left in publication limbo after the downfall of our original publisher Zoo [...] by Rigoberto González

anagrams in america October 12, 2007: I'm about to leave town for the weekend to visit the ALSC, which means I'm unlikely to watch much of the ACLS, and when I get back to Massachusetts I'm going to write a letter and send it to the ACLS. That not-quite-coincidence, together with our little guy's newfound liking for rubber alphabet letters he can sort and assemble in the bath (and [...] by Stephen Burt

Drown the Resume October 10, 2007: Rigoberto may be right when he says of The Best American Poetry series that “there's something for everyone, usually, and like it or not the series is here to stay and to say something about the contemporary poetry scene.” There’s no denying po-biz exists, and this is one yardstick by which to measure the seductive racket. But I worry, given [...] by Ange Mlinko