Thursday Shout Out March 27, 2008: I have had the great pleasure of introducing Jennifer L. Knox in a few different writing courses. The first thing that happens is a dilation of pupils, as if an art history teacher suddenly flipped the next slide to reveal the students’ own family photographs. There amongst the van Gogh’s and the Gauguin’s is a picture of their sister [...] by Ada Limón

Tran Da Tu March 26, 2008: American readers are familiar with the Vietnam War poetry of Bruce Weigl and Yusef Komunyakaa, etc., some may even have read former NVA Bao Ninh's novel, The Sorrows of War, but almost no one has read the war poetry of the South Vietnamese, on whose land much of the fighting took place, but that's not so unusual, is it? How many know what Iraqi [...] by Linh Dinh

Poem: House in the World March 25, 2008: House In the World I’m looking for a house In the world Where the white shadows Will not fall. There is no such house, Dark brothers, No such house At all. (more...) by Major Jackson

Read This and Tell Me What It Says March 24, 2008: Once again illness has kept me away from blogging for a bit. I had surgery on Friday on the tumors on my liver, which the surgeon believes he has gotten (yay!), but I had to go the emergency room on Saturday in intense pain that turned out to be caused by pneumonia in my right lung. As Frank Sinatra sang, everything happens to me. Yeesh. I’m [...] by Reginald Shepherd

4000/1,191,216 March 24, 2008: 4000 U.S. military dead in Iraq. 1,191,216 Iraqi deaths (www.antiwar.com). My prime of youth is but a froste of cares: My feaste of joy, is but a dishe of payne: My cropp of corne, is but a field of tares: And all my good is but vaine hope of gaine: The daye is gone, and yet I sawe no sonn: And nowe I live, and nowe my life is donn The springe is [...] by Daisy Fried

Small and Smallest March 23, 2008: Flying from San Francisco to London over the weekend, I found myself sitting next to a woman whose accent sounded more British than American, so I assumed she was a Brit going home, but no, Randi Cathinka Neverdal was a Norwegian doing her doctorate thesis on small press literary publishing in the U.S. What serendipity! "I'm a poet," I admitted to [...] by Linh Dinh

Self-Suspicion March 22, 2008: I recently read the journalist Janet Malcolm’s Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice. The much bruited hook is how did two American Jewish lesbians survive in Vichy France during WWII. The answer is that they were protected by the collaborator Bernard Fay, about whom they may not have known much in terms of his responsibility for the suffering and [...] by Daisy Fried

Truth and Clarity March 21, 2008: So, following Ange Mlinko’s suggestion in the comments section of my last post, here’s all I’m talking about regarding the difference between Truth and Clarity. (They sound like allergy medicines, don’t they?) Truth (to me) might go something like “Socialist democracy is the best form of government.” And I’m always delighted to read [...] by Daisy Fried

Taking Risks: Thursday Shout Out March 20, 2008: It is the first day of spring. Renew. Read. Rev up. In attempting to carry on some of Rigoberto’s wonderful work introducing new books and old favorites from his collection, I thought I’d start a Thursday shout out series. (Unlike Rigo, I may not be able to do it every Thursday, but I will do my honest best.) Often, the poems that thrill me [...] by Ada Limón

The Facts of Late Winter March 20, 2008: The new feature on the site, "Diversity Then!," by the novelist Paul La Farge, looks at the sensational faits divers penned by Félix Fénéon in the early 20th century. La Farge mentions that such swift, lurid accounts—poems in small—inspired everyone from Stendhal to Duras to the Surrealists, but modestly leaves out his own book, The Facts [...] by Ed Park