Meds September 15, 2009: Went to see a band last night in the nearby town of Hudson, New York, called The Akron Family. They all sing together and have a very collective, trance-y, barn-dance vibe. The kids are so positive these days! (The kids who don't write poetry, that is.) I've always thought a band called Meds would be great, but maybe now this moniker sounds too [...] by Rebecca Wolff

Jim Carroll, R.I.P. September 15, 2009: Jim Carroll—poet, novelist, musician, diarist, impresario—died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 60 years old. The tributes and reminisces have come in from various sources--from English footballers to New York musicians to everyday readers--all noting what a tremendous presence Carroll was both onstage and off. *The New York [...] by Travis Nichols

My Man September 14, 2009: Just to say quickly my man is Frankenstein, the creation of a pretty young woman dating an older poet, Percy Shelley. She, Mary, took a dare on a rainy weekend with the older guys in the mountains for a few days (Who can write the best ghost story? asked Byron) and came up with this one that does get more absurd as it goes along. But the main [...] by Eileen Myles

Back to Skool September 14, 2009: "The folklorist Vladimir Propp thought he was accomplishing something worthwhile by identifying in Russian folktales thirty-one functions and 151 elements, with a mathematical symbol assigned to each." -- Roger Shattuck, Forbidden Knowledge * Asked why he continued to live in Vienna after the war, Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said, "If [...] by Joel Brouwer

Intimate in Pace September 12, 2009: I’m trying to cure myself of the blogging late in the month syndrome PARTICULARLY because this month is my last month of blogging. To get to the quick of it I think well why am I not blogging now. Well because I have a new book and I’m obsessed in a way that figures directly on that reality so I’m not blogging directly on my new book so [...] by Eileen Myles

Today September 11, 2009: I was deep in the heart of the heart of the country on September 11, 2001, and spent much of the day trying and failing to fight off abstraction, to somehow worm my way into the reality. Poems can sometimes help with that. The Poetry Foundation has these poems available for your perusal today. No offense, fine poems, but kind of a weird [...] by Joel Brouwer

Frances Chung, ‘Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple’ (Wesleyan University Press, 2000) September 11, 2009: we who know that those who are brave cross Mott Street on a diagonal. —Frances Chung, Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple Frances Chung’s manuscript of poems, “Crazy Melon,” which was published posthumously as the first half of the book Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple, edited by Walter K. Lew, is a collection of poems written in various [...] by Barbara Jane Reyes

I need your help September 11, 2009: I've recently been asked this question: Do you think poetry should manifestly take place outside of the mind of the maker? Or is “place” just one more construction? And I feel like I don't understand the terms of the debate, or discourse. I said, so far: "You know, I think this is one I don’t have much of interest to say about. I feel [...] by Rebecca Wolff

Measure for Measure September 9, 2009: Original Artwork by Paul Killebrew Anyone who has ever looked at a photo of W.H. Auden knows the man enjoyed a good martini in his time.  Perhaps one or five too many.  "But," the inimitable Rosie Schaap asks in this week's cover story, "what sort of martini?" She writes: If Tarquin Winot, the epicurean protagonist of John Lanchester’s [...] by Travis Nichols

X-Rays and Fowling Pieces September 9, 2009: Shout out to a poet whose poems - like X-rays - are quick, high-voltage and penetrating... like this one, called, well, "The X-Ray" -- Mornings, the body’s old winter monochrome gives its image of extraordinary cold to a million hives— I could imagine a lanthorn as it swallows its strange light and gleams from within as if [...] by Don Share