Interview with Vivek Narayanan (Part II) August 24, 2008: Alan: In “Four Ground-breaking Things In Five Issues of Civil Lines or, Ways to Get Your Head Out of the Postcolonial Sand,” you make equations between particular historical moments in India and its literature. Here in the United States, writers and artists have worked for eight years under the cloud of the Bush administration, and, to a [...] by Alan Gilbert

Interview with Vivek Narayanan (Part I) August 24, 2008: I first met Vivek Narayanan here in New York City at the Beats in India: A Soul of Asia Symposium hosted by the Asia Society, which I blogged about back in June. I really enjoyed talking with him, and he agreed to being interviewed via email once he returned to India in August. Because it’s a bit long, I’ve divided the interview into two [...] by Alan Gilbert

Soccer, Sex, Literature and Immigration August 22, 2008: I took a four-hour train ride from Rhinecliff to Philadelphia, with a switch in NYC. I sat on the right side to take in the Hudson's wide span, cliffs, bridges, canadian geese and an eccentric faux castle on a shaggy islet, but I was too drowsy, my mind drained from teaching a month at Bard College. Talking one-on-one with dozens of writers, [...] by Linh Dinh

“Apolitical poems are also political” August 22, 2008: In mid-August of 2004, I visited the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams with poets Kristin Prevallet, Roberto Tejada, Tonya Foster, David Buuck, Richard Deming, Nancy Kuhl, and my then 1 1/2-year-old daughter Sophie (all of whom have gone on to big things, including Sophie). We were there to check out the various [...] by Alan Gilbert

Not Winning the William Carlos Williams Award New Best Way to Get Thoughtful Critique August 21, 2008: Question: Has anyone ever read the slush pile as assiduously as Ronald Silliman? His long-running catalog of the non-winning WCW books on his bloggo should give us all hope that if and when we get the silly notion to send poems off to a contest that the judges will actually read the work--not just glance mockingly at our fonts in between slurpy [...] by Travis Nichols

Top ten things you may not have known about G.M. Hopkins August 21, 2008: 1.) His nickname as a teenager at school was “Skin.” 1.a.) He was home schooled until he was about ten, and then almost got expelled from the school he eventually attended. 2.) The Hopkins family motto was Esse quan videri – “To be rather than to seem.” 3.) By the time Hopkins had begun writing poems seriously, the best [...] by Don Share

Fences, Workers’ Theatre, & the CPT(s) August 20, 2008: One of the unadulterated joys of living in the Twin Cities is the presence of the Penumbra Theater just a few blocks down the road from my house. Founded in 1976 by director Lou Bellamy, Penumbra has embarked on a five year project to stage each play in August Wilson’s 20th century magnum opus—which is, as many of you may know, a bringing [...] by Mark Nowak

I just had coffee with Reginald August 20, 2008: That is, his fine new poems in the Sept/Oct American Poetry Review. The poems are accompanied by a short interview that focuses on the way autobiography collides with myth in his poems--among other subjects, including how Reginald used blogging in the creation of his recent prose work, among which is his book Orpheus in the Bronx. Sorry--can't [...] by Lucia Perillo

Sustenance and abandonment August 19, 2008: The release in paperback this month of If I Were Writing This, the final book of poems Robert Creeley saw into print before his death in 2005, provides a good opportunity to think about his late work. (more...) by Alan Gilbert

Lojong has nothing to do with Mahjong August 17, 2008: I’m interested in spiritual practices and like to attend demonstrations of them, such as Catholic masses, which is the tradition within which I was raised and which still seems frightening to me, but also beautiful (the stained glass interiors, in such contrast to those rented office spaces I’ve looked into and seen people swaying with raised [...] by Lucia Perillo