Standing and waving May 18, 2009: The idea that poets and novelists possess separate and incompatible temperaments, like fortune-tellers and pharmacists, that poets are preoccupied with language (“for the life of the language”) while novelists are engrossed by society (“for the betterment of the world”), is a commonplace—perhaps also a consequence—of the paced [...] by Don Share

Eileen and Me (1982) May 18, 2009: Annie Finch and Alix Baer 1980 ( photo: J. Miller) It’s 1981 and it’s a year before I’m going to meet Eileen Myles. I’m living in the East Village, on a deserted-looking block of Avenue A a couple blocks north of Tompkins Square Park, trying to figure out how I can ever find my place in the poetry world.  I’m writing a shamanic [...] by Annie Finch

Me & Annie & AC (1982) May 18, 2009: I think David Rattray introduced Annie Finch & I and I already knew AC Chubb, a saxophone player who I had a crush on. And I had received a grant that year for poetry so naturally I bought an electric bass. It was kind of hot for poets at that moment to be in a band. I had one lesson with Mark a guy I generally got very drunk with and the [...] by Eileen Myles

green, yellow, grey: go! May 13, 2009: I’m heading to Oregon tomorrow, and I can’t get Bob Kaufman out of my head. We like to claim Kaufman here in San Francisco, but every time I go to Oregon I think of his spectacularly green poem about the state that sells a heck of a lot of grass (as in turf, people, we’re all on the up and up here) to the rest of the [...] by Camille Dungy

Canadian Content on Harriet Plummets May 13, 2009: With this post, I reach the end of my run at Harriet. Many thanks to the Poetry Foundation for the invitation to blog and to the other bloggers for their comments and to all of the readers. I hope to find more Canadians on Harriet sooner rather than later - or perhaps a portfolio committed to Canadian poetry in some future issue of the print [...] by Jason Guriel

Derek Walcott Drops Out May 13, 2009: The big poetry news this week (besides the bizarre "poetry jam" over at the White House) is Derek Walcott's withdrawal from the Oxford poetry race due to an anonymous letter-writing campaign detailing sexual harassment claims against him. The campaign brought to light allegations from the Nobel-laureate's time at Harvard. According to the New [...] by Travis Nichols

Talismans May 13, 2009: Some time ago, in the spirit of good fun, I asked the denizens of Harriet what was on their desks and – perhaps understandably – reaped few responses. What does it matter, the cluttered context in which a writer gets her writing done? Who wants to confess to the favourite Troll doll that stands watch over a keyboard? Nevertheless, I was happy [...] by Jason Guriel

John Updike’s Non-Poetry May 12, 2009: My thoughts re John Updike’s non-poetry bear some relation to Jason’s accidental and deliberate poetry meditations. I had problems w both those distinction because all poetry seems to me to be in the John Ashbery sense “managed chance” and so gets subsumed into “poetry” pretty quick. I mean it to seem accidental. And the problem with [...] by Eileen Myles

Poetry Is May 11, 2009: Recently, over at Slate, John Dickerson posed a challenge to readers: define the game of baseball in 150 words or less. Dickerson had been trying to figure out how to explain baseball to his six year-old son, without losing the son's attention. He got many responses, which got me thinking: how would one (e.g. a teacher or a parent) define poetry [...] by Jason Guriel

Happy Mother’s Day, to Foremothers, Poet-Moms, and Maggie May 10, 2009: Today I went to visit my mother, Margaret Rockwell Finch, who turned 88 a few weeks ago.  As always lately, she showed me a new poem.  Maggie was my first model of a Margaret Rockwell Finch, 1961 working poet, entering and once winning the contests of the Poetry Society of America, whose meetings she brought me to as a teenager; typing [...] by Annie Finch