Wednesday Shout Out October 10, 2007: Ah, to go back to the mornings of innocence, and to the afternoons of transgression: Case Studies 1. I am eleven and convinced sex is everything I have read in the forbidden Havelock Ellis on the top shelf that needs a ladder to bring down into my fetish-a-day report to the grade-school playground where nobody believes it is possible for a man [...] by Rigoberto González

The Old New World October 9, 2007: The neighborhood I live in in Athens is called Neos Kosmos, the “New World,” a largely working-class neighborhood (though gentrifying as it is convenient to the center), with a fairly large immigrant population among the Greeks—mostly Albanian, but that is shifting now to include more of the former Eastern Bloc and occasionally Pakistan, [...] by A.E. Stallings

Quick Review 05 October 8, 2007: ----------------- "144 The mastermind of this roller coaster, in an interview, confessed that the goal of his work is to replicate a ride in which participants are scared out of their minds, yet feel the comforting presence of someone there, riding along and watching over them." from The Body by Jenny Boully Slope Editions, [...] by Christian Bök

The case of the profound connection October 8, 2007: Ange asks: "Could it be that there is a profound cultural connection between the poet and the detective?" The answer is... Yes! Francis M. Nevins wrote on the topic for us earlier this year: Solve the Case, Solve the Sonnet by Ed Park

The Enigma October 8, 2007: You may have seen the news items here and there about Anne Stevenson’s having just received the Poetry Foundation’s “Neglected Masters” award, which honors a significant but under-recognized American poet. It’s incredible to think that when the Library of America publishes her selected poems next spring it will be her first book of [...] by Don Share

Laïki Day October 8, 2007: I like Mondays because Monday is when the farmer’s market (the laïki agora), comes to our neighborhood, on the street just around the corner. There are plenty of drawbacks to living in central Athens—endless construction, garbage, pollution, traffic, strikes, protests, the eternal Kafka-esque tangle of bureaucracy, more protests—but this [...] by A.E. Stallings

Missing Persons October 7, 2007: There’s a scene in Val Lewton’s The Seventh Victim where one of the characters (who eats every night at the same Village restaurant, The Dante) is a poet on the trail of a Missing Person. This poet, Jason, goes to the New York Public Library and flirts with the librarian so that she’ll give him access to the index cards listing the titles [...] by Ange Mlinko

J’aime le “peer pressure” October 7, 2007: Because Ange nearly demanded it, I offer a list of unjustified and in some cases apparently unmotivated likes and dislikes, compiled, in part, while sitting in Greater Boston Area traffic. Make of it what you will. (There may be more to come, depending on future traffic.) J'aime (partial list): Game Theory (the band); white stripes (not the band); [...] by Stephen Burt

The Best American Poetry 2007 October 7, 2007: ’Fess up. You bought a copy. I did this year, anyway. I actually buy the essay and short story anthologies in the Scribner Best of series year after year without fail because I tend to use them as inexpensive readers for my writing students, but I’m more selective with the poetry volumes of the same series. In fact, when I took inventory [...] by Rigoberto González

Quick Review 04 October 6, 2007: ----------------- BBRNT2B? 2BORNOT 2BEE? BBRNO2B? BBORNOT BEBE? 2BRNT2B? 2BRNTOB? 2BORWAT? CNTDCYD. NDCISV. SLINGS. ARROWZ. SEA OF TROUBLZ. TODIE. PRCHNCE 2DREEEM. YACKITY YACKYAK. ITHINK 2MUCH. SHOULDI MAYYBEE JSTDOIT? “Hamlet” from PL8SPK by Daniel Nussbaum Harper Collins, 1994 ----------------- “Hamlet” by Daniel Nussbaum appears in [...] by Christian Bök