Hello Again & Harriet & Comments April 29, 2009: This seems like as good of a time as any to re-introduce myself as a Harriet citizen, so here I go: Hi.  How's it going? As many of you know, for the past eleven months  I've been a contributing writer here on Harriet and editorial consultant for Poetryfoundation.org.  This month, I've started work as the new associate editor.  I hope to [...] by Travis Nichols

Occasioning Poetry April 29, 2009: I was recently asked to write a poem for the inauguration of my university’s president, and I read it at the ceremony last weekend.  This gratifying experience got me thinking about the place of occasional poetry in our culture. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (more...) by Annie Finch

Opt In or Opt Out? April 29, 2009: The NYT reported yesterday that the Justice Department is looking into the anti-trust implications of the Google Books Settlement. This is the latest twist in an ongoing saga--one which leaves many savvy publishers and copyright experts (let alone writers) more than a little confused. Some background: In 2005, the Authors Guild and the [...] by Travis Nichols

Poetry now April 29, 2009: I’ve been posting quite a bit about the exciting work produced by some of our finest emerging poets, and I’ve also written about poems that are sonically engaging. So it may come as no surprise that I am pleased to announce that From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound [...] by Camille Dungy

Harriet Goes to the Movies April 28, 2009: Throughout the month of April, the National Post, a paper up here in Canada (or down here, if you live in Wasilla or something) has been conducting brief E-mail interviews with poets, for its books blog. I thought I would reproduce one of the quirkier questions here: “Novels are always being adapted into movies. What are some poems that deserve [...] by Jason Guriel

Helen Adam and Jack Spicer: Birds of the Fifties April 26, 2009: Poetry of the 1950s has added some rare notes to its scale the last year or two thanks to two badly-needed editions , Kristin Prevallet's A Helen Adam Reader (National Poetry Foundation) and Peter Gizzi/Kevin Killian's My Vocabulary Did This to Me: Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer (Wesleyan) (more...) by Annie Finch

Where Would You Like to Live?: A Reading of a Poem I Like, Plus a Question April 26, 2009: Real estate is on a lot of minds these days, but it’s in them, too; isn’t the mind (read: the imagination) a kind of low-rent housing to which we can retreat, however briefly, when we’ve been startled by a sudden scattering of cockroaches or when life, in general, looks grim under its bare bulb? I write “low-rent” because the only price [...] by Jason Guriel

A Few Harriet Statistics April 24, 2009: [caption id="attachment_2389" align="alignnone" width="428" caption="How the Air Force Handles Blog Wars"][/caption] Ten years ago, I ran a site for teenage girls with over 4 million registered users. We had at least a million teenage girls posting on our discussion boards, especially the poetry board. Every once in a while, we'd have to "bozo" [...] by Catherine Halley

What the Kids Are Reading These Days April 23, 2009: Every week I introduce my students to a few poems I think speak to what they’ve tried to write themselves.  I do this hoping they’ll read more and, reading more, learn to write better and better.  Amen.  It being near the end of the semester, I’ve been interested in what resonated most.  As ever, the answers surprised me. (more...) by Camille Dungy

Jim Behrle, Zadie Smith, Sexy Robots, and the Chicago Poetry Tour April 22, 2009: Jim Behrle (pictured above) has launched Baby Trotsky a Twitter literary magazine featuring, of course, 140 character poems and short (short!) stories.  Who knows if it will be as successful as Twitter's LOLcat haiku, or Anon Poetry (or even the PoFo's own Poetry News), but Mr. Behrle is nothing if not devoted to his projects, so we can all [...] by Travis Nichols