Fred Sasaki

Poetry Tweets

O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.
     —Lord Alfred Tennyson

Every morning I tweet bits from Poetry to 865 loves. Our trills are here. The posts are mostly unrequited, but sometimes we get a little love back. When we do, we invariably wonder what other Poetry tweets are out there, cheeping. See for yourself:

02.27.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Martin Earl

Hives

Brueghel – Children’s Games (1560)
On a recent trip abroad to visit my parents I developed a case of hives. It started in the early hours of the 17th of June, 2006. I woke up with itchy feet at about four in the morning. The next night the same thing happened, though now it had spread to the palms of my hands. Within a week I would begin to wake up covered with welts. The attacks extended to my waking hours. At any given moment a kind of virile punctuation would spread over my body and my face would explode in a hot red flush, like an over-ripe strawberry left behind on a picnic table in the middle of a summer afternoon. Job came to mind. But, whereas Job’s only conceptual outlet was metaphysical, the wrath of God, I had a gamut of competing scenarios, all of which quickly overwhelmed me. The Internet, where I daily (no, hourly) went to confirm my latest hypothesis, only aggravated the hives. After an hour of virtually surging liver enzymes, soaring lymphocytes and hypothalamic concussions, I would scratch my way out of the upstairs office in my parent’s seaside cottage and throw myself into the open air in an attempt to escape my own skin.

02.27.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (43)

Annie Finch

Women Poets & Mentorship

Here’s a photo lifted from the Facebook website of Dickinson scholar Martha Nell Smith:

I propose that what those of us who think about poetry will find most deeply startling about this piece of photoshopping, inspired by the “Aretha’s hat” post-inauguration website, is neither its humor (everyone knows Dickinson had a great sense of humor), nor the chronological workout it puts us through, nor even the implications about Dickinson’s political views. What is most profoundly startling, most unprecedented, is that the photo situates Dickinson blatantly in relation to another woman’s ideas. And this is not how we normally think of Dickinson.

02.26.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (36)

Camille Dungy

In Praise of the Anthology

Say what you will about anthologies. For my part, I love these treasure troves. Much of my early exposure to new work or, to put it better, work that is new to me, comes through anthologies. Given the opportunity I, like O’Hara, would certainly “buy/ an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets/in Ghana are doing these days.” I owe many of my love affairs with poets to the anthologies that first introduced me to their work. My bookshelves boast many spine-battered anthologies, favorites from my teens and early twenties. Many of these collections I still read and teach from today.

02.26.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (10)

Kenneth Goldsmith

UbuWeb Featured Resources February 2009 – Selected by Dennis Cooper

UbuWeb Featured Resources:
February 2009
Selected by Dennis Cooper
1. Alexander Kluge ‘Brutality in Stone (Yesterday Goes on Forever)’
2. Ryan Trecartin ‘I-Be AREA’
3. Alain Robbe-Grillet ‘Jealousy’
4. Douglas Huebler ‘Variable Piece 4 New York City: Secrets’ [PDF]
5. Tellus #15: The Improvisors
6. Rene Ricard ‘Rene Ricard famous at 20′
7. Chris Burden ‘Documentation of Selected Works 1971-74′
8. Claude Simon ‘Properties of Several Geometric and Non-Geometric Figures’
9. Glenn Branca/The Static ‘The Static’
10. Terayama Shuji ‘Experimental Image World Vol. 1′
Dennis Cooper is the author of eight novels, most recently ‘The Sluts’ and ‘God Jr.’ (both 2005). With the French director Gisele Vienne, he has co-created theater five works, most recently ‘Jerk’ (2007). He’s a Contributing Editor of Artforum, and editor of the publishing imprint Little House on the Bowery/Akashic Books. His blog is here.

02.24.09 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Catherine Halley

Oblique Strategies

I’m a sucker for little internet randomness games. This one, called Oblique Strategies, comes from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. It felt particularly prophetic and possibly poetic the first few times I clicked on it. What do you think?
All the fun I just had with it makes me think we ought to have a random button on this site so you can see all the terrific articles buried in our archives. It ain’t random, but search for “flarf” and you get:
Verse by the Yard By Izzy Grinspan
Ah, Memories By The Editors
The Five-Book-a-Week Diet By Paisley Rekdal

02.24.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Catherine Halley

Hello Harriet

If you’re a Harriet regular, you’ve probably noticed a few new-ish names over in the right-hand column. One of them is mine. That’s because I’ve taken over for Emily Warn as the manager of the Poetry Foundation website. You will probably continue to hear from Emily now and then as you do from other former Harriet bloggers; and now and then, you’ll likely hear from me. You might enjoy that because I tend to open my mouth and what I think comes out. If not, you’ll have to take me on in the comments section. But be nice, or I might ban you from the blog.
Speaking of the comments section, I’m impressed by the lively discussions going on here, and am especially happy with the tenor of the comments since our latest batch of bloggers began. I’d like to thank them (and all of you) for creating an environment where everyone feels they can contribute to the discussion.
So even though we’ve all been here a while, welcome to me and to our latest batch of Harriet bloggers: Camille Dungy, Martin Earl, Annie Finch, and Jason Guriel.

02.22.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (9)

Jason Guriel

In the Year 2000

The current number of one of the better magazines in Canada asks a cross-section of smart writers and intellectuals to predict the state of the arts in 25 years. These are nervy folks, not unlike the sort of type-A’s you often find sealed in astronaut suits, tottering forward in slow motion. Facing the future, after all, wants bravery. And every now and then some intrepid soul does get it right – has gotten it right. Here’s the late, great poet and critic Randall Jarrell, on the future he never lived to see:

02.21.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (17)