On Translation April 24, 2008: The best way to criticize an imperfect translator is not to shoot, then bury him in a picturesque forest, but to do a better translation. Doing this, you'll make the flawed, offensive translation, which you've sucked on and tweaked only slightly, disappear forever from the face of this earth. The many resistances in the source poem force the [...] by Linh Dinh

Thursday Shout Out: Dawn Lundy Martin April 24, 2008: To speak the unspeakable, that is often the poet’s job. Finding a language for what otherwise goes shoved under the worldwide carpet. In Dawn Lundy Martin’s beautiful and uncompromising new book, “A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering,” we are given a language for the body. The body as object of obsession, the body as lover, the [...] by Ada Limón

Nasty Habits April 24, 2008: Saw Shine A Light, Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones movie, last night. In a theater! (Such things get an exclamation point when you’ve got a one-year-old: We! Went! On! A! Date! And! Saw! A! Movie!) And really this one should be seen in a theater because, I mean, if you want to see Keith Richards sweating, which I realized last night that I [...] by Daisy Fried

UbuWeb :: New Addtions, Spring 2008 April 23, 2008: UbuWeb Tellus Audio Cassettes (1983-1993) http://www.ubu.com/sound/tellus.htmlUbuWeb is pleased to present the entire run of the legendary New York-based Tellus audio cassette magazine. Originally a subscription-based bimonthly publication, the series took full advantage of the popular cassette medium to promote cutting edge music, documenting [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

A Little Writing on the Wall April 22, 2008: Lately, the graffiti in my neighborhood has been getting very positive. I find that each day on another block I’m getting bombarded more and more with messages of Magic and Think of the Future. On good days I find it practically overwhelming how lovely it is, on bad days I take offense. But either way it reminds me of how many of us feel like [...] by Ada Limón

Tongued April 21, 2008: My apartment in Philadelphia is three blocks from Geno's Steaks, famous for the sign, "This is America, when ordering speak English." The owner of Geno's, Joey Vento, is a little guy with a big attitude. (Vento is Italian for "wind," by the way.) Joey has a Hummer and several Harleys, which he displays in a store front with his confederate flag, [...] by Linh Dinh

You know you love me April 21, 2008: Are you excited for tonight's GOSSIP GIRL? (OK, catch your breath.) Now tell me: Does the show reflect poetry's diminishing cultural capital? (more...) by Ed Park

American Classics April 21, 2008: New Fish Cat in Hat Despite the fact that he was a leftie (cf. various Marxist analyses of Horton Hears a Who), I’m hating Dr. Seuss more and more each day, even as Maisie likes him more and more. All those damned monosyllables. But I’ve discovered that, while Jim is reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to Maisie out loud, it is [...] by Daisy Fried

Border Poetry April 18, 2008: [Artemio Rodriguez, linocut] In 2006, I spent two of the best months of my life in Marfa, Texas, thanks to a residency from the Lannan Foundation. While there, I drove several times to the sleepy, charming, dentist and drug-infested Ojinaga, explored the raw, alarming Ciudad Juarez, which reminded me a bit of provincial Vietnamese cities, [...] by Linh Dinh

Praise for Spring & NaPoWriMo April 17, 2008: In reading the insightful discourse on online intimacies, I found myself thinking deeply about the importance of the online community for poetry. Mainly I was thinking about the odd and blossoming event that has happened every April for the past five years: National Poetry Writing Month. Now, we all know it’s National Poetry Month, but to some [...] by Ada Limón