A vision of poetry utopia May 20, 2010: from Baroque in Hackney: Less kvetching about “why no one reads poetry.” First of all, they DO, and second, just shuddupaboudit. It’s like having a party and buttonholing your guests about why nobody came. A vast expanse of expansiveness. Why are poets, of all people, complaining that too much poetry is being published? Let’s [...] by Harriet Staff

Kay Ryan: The Exit Interview May 20, 2010: Kay Ryan reflects on her time as U.S. poet laureate at the Washington City Paper: WCP: Has your relationship to poetry changed in any way since becoming laureate? KR: Well I’ve had very little time to write poetry—it’s become a job. I will be very happy to return to the civilian ranks, and become a civilian poet again. I’ll get [...] by Harriet Staff

Will the next Juvenal come from juvie? May 20, 2010: The Chicago Tribune has the story of the Cook County juvenile detention poets: "It's too bad I had to come to jail to learn about life when I had you at home the entire time," recited one young man, his eyes locked to the ground and hands clasped behind his back. The sentiment in another teen's poem is just as poignant and revealing: "Looking [...] by Poetry News

What would magazines be without poetry? May 19, 2010: The New York Review of Magazines asks what would happen if magazines stopped publishing poetry: Why do these magazines continue to publish poems? Because it’s a die-hard tradition, say eight current and former poetry editors. “If they give it up, then the heart and soul of The Atlantic or The New Yorker will just be transferred into a [...] by Harriet Staff

Angel Island Poetry May 19, 2010: In an audio clip on the Two Words site, Marlon Hom discusses the poetry etched by Chinese immigrants into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. For 30 year the Angel Island Immigration Station processed over 200,000 immigrants, most of them Chinese. Confined to a small cell and awaiting their fate, [...] by Poetry News

Edoardo Sanguineti, RIP May 19, 2010: From the AP: Edoardo Sanguineti, a poet, critic and intellectual whose playful use of language made him an important neo-avant-garde figure on Italy's 1960s literary scene, died on Tuesday in a Genoa hospital. Doctors at Villa Scassi hospital said Sanguineti, 79, died there following emergency surgery for an abdominal aneurysm. In the [...] by Harriet Staff

Searching for a word, finding poetry May 19, 2010: When businessmen can't find the mot juste, they're prone to get poetic. The Wall Street Journal reports: At a gathering of Indian and Pakistani businessmen in New Delhi that came to a close Wednesday, industry leaders from both countries mostly spoke to each other in English as they suggested ways to increase economic ties between the two [...] by Harriet Staff

Poet and PEN president detained in Belarus May 19, 2010: Minsk authorities have detained Vladimir Neklyayev along with other writers and activists, according to the Winnipeg Free Press: Opposition and rights groups in Belarus say authorities have detained several dozen activists. The leader of Speak the Truth, Vladimir Neklyayev, says authorities also searched the offices of his rights group as [...] by Poetry News

Lyrics as literature May 19, 2010: The Sydney Morning Herald asks the musical question, Is "My Humps" poetic? In the early '60s, the critic Paul Nelson, in his influential publication The Little Sandy Review, described [Bob] Dylan as ''the man who in every sense revolutionised modern poetry, American folk music, popular music and the whole of modern-day thought''. In 1967, [...] by Harriet Staff

“Art may be theft . . . but it doesn’t follow that theft is art” May 19, 2010: David Shield's reality, as seen through the lens of Shelley, Wordsworth, and Harold Bloom in n+1: The interesting formal and thematic qualities of literature mostly take place in-between simple imitation of an out-there reality and simple quotation of an out-there text: there are things called “tropes,” a word that comes from “turn” in [...] by Harriet Staff