A Children’s Treasury of Mark E. Smith Verse November 19, 2010: more via A Journey Round My Skull by Harriet Staff

It’s William Butler Yeats, stupid November 19, 2010: As economists continue to tend toward sunny optimism in the face of collapse, the Wall Street Journal notes that finding appropriate doom-laden references within the field are few and far between. When confronted with losing their economic independence, the Irish Parliament looked to poetry for the answers instead: To illustrate their point, they [...] by Poetry News

No More Questions November 19, 2010: George Murray's Questionless Books Interview is a series of interviews conducted by supplying the interviewee with unfinished sentences, and allowing him or her to fill in the blanks. In the most recent post, poet Christian Bök waxes poetic on the difference between writers, authors, and editors, and on his own interplanetary origins: A [...] by Harriet Staff

Poetry best sellers, November 7-14, 2010 November 18, 2010: After making their debuts in late August, the newest titles from Mary Oliver and Seamus Heaney have remained at or near the top of the contemporary best seller list, and this week is no different, with Swan at number 1 and Human Chain at number 2. National Book Award nominee One with Others by CD Wright jumps twelve spots to number 13, just [...] by Harriet Staff

Speak, Machine! November 18, 2010: Don’t you think that the most disappointing things about computers is that they aren’t human enough? And those speech programs—bleh! By now, we’re all familiar with the way computers speak, and we, the people, demand better! Thankfully, scientists are on the case. And Dr. Michael Wagner, a researcher in McGill University’s Department [...] by Harriet Staff

Do you remember the movie “Grumpy Old Men 2″? Well, you’re watching it. November 18, 2010: Every now and then, some old dude says something about how things aren’t as good as they used to be, and about how the culture is in decline, and about how no one reads poetry anymore, and about how anyway today’s poetry pales in comparison to the great work of past, and blah blah blah. This sort of argument is in no way surprising. What is [...] by Harriet Staff

“Hoop Dreams” for poets November 18, 2010: Ronnie Scheib of Variety reviews "To Be Heard," the collaborative documentary about the lives of three Bronx high school students enrolled in a poetry course that won both the competition and audience award at this year's Doc NYC Fest. Reminiscent of the years-spanning intimacy of "Love and Diane" or "Hoop Dreams," the docu plays like a [...] by Poetry News

Should MIT teach poetry? November 18, 2010: After MIT dropped its Advanced Poetry Workshop, students got in a huff. Now, John Lundberg at the Huffington Post wonders what the renowned Tech school could actually learn from poetry: Writing a poem not only requires the poet to be creative; it requires that she constantly subject that creativity to the pressure of analysis. Good poets learn [...] by Harriet Staff

Small press, Patti Smith, and Terrance Hayes win at the 2010 National Book Awards November 18, 2010: via Jacket Copy: Iconic rocker Patti Smith has won the National Book Award for nonfiction for "Just Kids," her memoir of her close relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. The win took many by surprise. There was another surprise at the National Book Awards, held Wednesday night at Cirpriana Wall Street in New York City. Instead of [...] by Poetry News

Constrain yourself: 50 years of Oulipo November 18, 2010: The 2010 Conference on Constrained Poetry promises lectures and workshops on the language of numerology, "poetical mathematics," and other startling discoveries in the in field of limitation. Conceived as a celebration of 50 years of Oulipo by UNCA Associate Professor of Math Patrick Bahls with Literature Professor Richard Chess, the conference [...] by Harriet Staff