Enhanced meaning through layered experience, and other art tips from Dada September 30, 2010: The Big Think has an appreciation of Peggy Samuels's new book Deep Skin: Elizabeth Bishop and Visual Art, which details the connections between the Modernist master's work and that of painters like Kurt Schwitters, Alexander Calder, and Paul Klee: Thanks to college roommate and MoMA curator Margaret Miller, Bishop gained an insider’s access [...] by Harriet Staff

Are literary novelists the new poets? September 30, 2010: Woe is the literary author who soon won't be able to live off of writing novels, if the e-book economic predictions prove true. Whatever shall writers do? Stop their yapping and take a page from the poet's book,  Publishers Weekly editor and poet Craig Morgan Teicher offers a a few words of advice to literary writers from the poetry [...] by Harriet Staff

The smart money is on Tranströmer for the Nobel September 30, 2010: The British bookies at Ladbrokes, a London gambling company, are betting 5/1 that Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer will take home the Nobel, according to the Guardian. Other poets from other nations—Poland's Adam Zagajewski, Syria's Adonis, and Korea's Ko Un—are coming up on Tranströmer from behind, each with an 8/1 chance of victory. [...] by Poetry News

The senses of the census September 30, 2010: The current census has prompted an analysis of Robert Frost's poetry on Vermont public radio. (It was bound to happen.) Vermont Humanities Council Executive Director Peter Gilbert introduces his audience to the poem "The Census-Taker," one of a number of Frost poems about abandoned houses in northern New England.  There were lots of them in the [...] by Poetry News

Polishing the argument September 30, 2010: A Nation piece about two new volumes of Polish poetry—Ewa Lipska's The New Century and Janusz Szuber's They Carry a Promise—starts with a self-described bit of heresy: Polish poets publish too much. Such a generalization flirts with heresy in a country with so many lionized bards, and where for much of the twentieth century state censors [...] by Harriet Staff

The economics of e-readers September 30, 2010: The e-books, e-rights and royalties discussion is heating up, and after a Canadian government program posted 600 books on the web without compensating the authors, the folks at Bookninja were riled up enough to gather a few articles about agents, publishers, authors—and where the money is going. Also, this Publishers Weekly pieces analyzes [...] by Harriet Staff

Changing the game, again September 30, 2010: Self-defined "poor, parasitical critic" Micah Mattix has a small wishbone to pick with poet Thomas Sayers Ellis's  “Ten Rules for Changing the Game of Poetry.” Rather than innovative and game changing, Mattix suggests Ellis's rules are more "like asking for overtime." In response, Mattix posted seven sardonic alternative rules on his blog. [...] by Harriet Staff

Poetry best sellers, September 19-27, 2010 September 30, 2010: This week’s contemporary best seller list marks the return of some familiar names: Maxine Kumin’s selected poems, Where I Live, returns at number 9, Brian Turner’s second collection, Phantom Noise, ties with Anne Carson’s Nox at number 18, and Terrance Hayes’s Lighthead rounds out the list at number 30. Debuting on the list this week is [...] by Harriet Staff

The Inferno of Eileen Myles September 30, 2010: Eileen Myles from Monofonus Press on Vimeo. Not enough? Read this week's feature on Eileen Myles's Inferno (A Poet's Novel) by Emily Gould. Not enough video? More at the Teleportal Readings site. by Poetry News

Stop hating on editors, okay? September 29, 2010: Former Ploughshares editor Don Lee wrote an essay/manifesto for Review Review magazine titled "Editors Do Not Hate You, But They Have Every Reason To."  In a nutshell: editors are not out to squash creativity or silence unique voices. They actually want (good) writers to succeed! First Lee validates why many writers might begrudge [...] by Harriet Staff