domestic and foreign January 31, 2008: The classroom next to my office has been booming all morning in Russian, a language I don't speak at all: I recognize it when the students respond to the teacher, in unison, by shouting "Spasibo!," though the other frequent shoutouts wouldn't be phonologically possible in any of the (too few) languages I read: one of them sounds like "Ktonk!" and [...] by Stephen Burt

More Cavafy January 30, 2008: Rigoberto writes here of encountering Cavafy in his high school library, and the sense of discovery and liberation Cavafy's frank evocation of homosexual eroticism gave him as a young poet. Reginald writes in the comment box that: All the translations I've read make Cavafy sound like prose broken into lines--well-written, sensitive, insightful [...] by A.E. Stallings

Wednesday Shout Out January 30, 2008: My fifth month of weekly shout outs comes to a close today (only one more month before I too sign off the PF blog—how I’ll miss thee, Harriet!), so I decided to do something different: instead of reaching over to my personal poetry bookshelf or to the review copies pile, I skipped over to my local neighborhood bookstore to browse the [...] by Rigoberto González

AWP, Communazis, and Me January 28, 2008: This post is in two parts. The first is a simple announcement of my participation in the upcoming AWP Conference in New York City. I am chairing a panel on Saturday, February 2 at from noon to one fifteen on Gay Male Poetry Post Identity Politics, featuring “emerging”? poets Christopher Hennessy (whose wonderful blog Outside the Lines focuses [...] by Reginald Shepherd

ode-y & emo January 28, 2008: I've been reading part five of The Grand Piano, the serial self-mythologizing nostalgia 1970s scene report "collective autobiography" of ten poets and critics who lived in the Bay Area during the 1970s, participated in (some also directed) a reading series at the eponymous café, and later became known as Language Poets. Since one of the ten is [...] by Stephen Burt

In Praise of Cavafy January 28, 2008: As a young gay man growing up closeted in a Mexican household, I had to find my queer role models in books. In high school I heard that Federico García Lorca was gay, and that so was Tennessee Williams, and Truman Capote, and Walt Whitman. Though their works weren’t necessarily queer—I really had to read into them sometimes—knowing that [...] by Rigoberto González

Alice January 28, 2008: When I was sick as a little girl (which was pretty often), I would lie in a darkened room with the cool whoosh of the humidifier beside me and would listen to LPs of a complete reading of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland." The two things are combined in odd ways in my memory, as if being unwell was a kind of going down a rabbit hole into a [...] by A.E. Stallings

hallo out there January 27, 2008: I warned you about it last month, and now it's happened: this week I think I did more writing than reading, and in the rush of finishing up other sorts of prose about poets and poetry, I plumb ran out of new poetry-related discoveries of the sort that one would blog. I hope to bring back a few from what looks to be a very crowded AWP, but at least [...] by Stephen Burt

Random Poetry 07 January 25, 2008: ----------------- "WE" First utterance of Talking Popcorn by Nina Katchadourian ----------------- (more...) by Christian Bök

Random Poetry 06 January 25, 2008: ----------------- dhcmrlchtdj "distribution height closets may remote Library catalogue hardly to die just dead hands claim me repeat Library centre hexagons the do jumbles dreams hundred cannot matter rudimentary letter could have this did justified dimensions hope corridors met remote Library could have the discover juggle disappeared have cup [...] by Christian Bök