In circulars November 10, 2009: I’ve started several times to write something about the Tulsa School Conference since I came home to New York Sunday night. Exhaustion prevented anything coherent from happening initially. Sticking my head up my ass for a moment inside a comment box yesterday was mildly derailing as well as metaphysically concussive (currently I think it’s [...] by Anselm Berrigan

Lisa Robertson: Dispatch from Jouhet! November 10, 2009: During a site migration (I love technical jargon, don't you?), a number of Harriet's journals were lost.  But I'm pleased - and extremely grateful to the crack web team here for their help - to be able to re-present this one!  It's Lisa Robertson's dispatch from Jouhet, France.  Here you go...  enjoy!  Discuss!! MONDAY In this [...] by Don Share

Writing on the wall November 9, 2009: White space criss-crossed yesterday’s New York Times opinion page like mortar. Uneven in length and width, stanzas gave the impression of crumbling brick. Poem titles appeared painted on, recalling graffiti. In light of the endless debate over Whether Good Political Poetry Exists, the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a [...] by Abigail Deutsch

Buffer Zone Galactica November 6, 2009: Reading with Will Alexander at the Poetry Project recently was a fabulous experience. One of the layers I walked away with was his between-poem chatter-as-parable. I'm more from the camp of letting the work explain what it has to, so I almost never say a word between each piece—the entire reading being one performance—the weave of narrative / [...] by Edwin Torres

Poemsinging November 6, 2009: Like many people, my interest in poetry grew out of my interest in music. As a listener, I love the thoughtful lyrics of songwriters like Joe Henry, Rennie Sparks from The Handsome Family, Chuck D, Gershwin. Regardless of the song-genre, great lyrics hit me first.  My interest in reading poetry came about in a much sneakier way. I took [...] by John S. O'Connor

Indie Publishing: Two Questions, Many More Answers November 6, 2009: Many thanks to Brent E. Beltrán and Consuelo Manríquez de Beltrán of Calaca Press, Patrick Durgin of Kenning Editions, and Willie Perdomo of Cypher Books for their responses to my indie publishing questions. I know my current series of posts (#1 | #2) on indie publishing isn't garnering heaps of Harriet comments, which is fine, because I do [...] by Barbara Jane Reyes

a question on hearing November 4, 2009: I’ll be heading to Tulsa, Oklahoma tomorrow to take part in The Tulsa School Conference & Literary Festival that Grant Jenkins has organized through The University of Tulsa. Never been there, but my father, Ted Berrigan, was stationed in Tulsa after the Korean War and wound up enrolling in TU via the G.I. Bill. There he met Ron Padgett, Dick [...] by Anselm Berrigan

Joe November 4, 2009: by Melissa Friedling

Poetry makes nothing happen… or does it? November 4, 2009: You see the phrase, "poetry makes nothing happen" trotted out over and over again, attributed to W.H. Auden as some sort of evidence for the reductiveness and hermetic inutility of poetry.  And yet...This ignores the fact that the phrase occurs in a POEM – one, moreover, that eulogizes a poet who made things happen (being a politician and [...] by Don Share

literary gatherings: a schmoozer’s guide November 3, 2009: The literati are like aliens. Some are cute. Some are hostile. All talk funny, and all require diplomatic outreach. (Daniel Nester recently described this phenomenon in his riotous, depressing takedown of the New York poetry scene, "Goodbye to All Them.") I here present the strategies I have observed and developed at literary gatherings, [...] by Abigail Deutsch