Jay-Z as major poet November 17, 2010: Jay-Z and Cornel West at the New York Public Library. Enjoy: by Midnight Snack

TRY! November 17, 2010: Try is a xeroxed and folded 8-and-1/2-by-14-inch magazine issued by poets David Brazil and Sara Larsen. It began appearing out of the Bay area in 2008, maintaining an impressive rate of two-issues-a-month during its first year. More recently, Brazil and Larsen switched over to printing Try once a month. I tend to send them my intermediary [...] by Cedar Sigo

Chilean poets aboard the Moscow Metro November 17, 2010: Tell me if you've heard this one before: Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Vicente Uidobro, Gonsalo Rojas and Nikanor Parra are on a Russian subway car... Moscow Underground today launches its "Poetry in the Metro" train to accompany the already running "Reading Moscow" (devoted to children's literature) and "Aquarelle" (devoted to visual art). [...] by Poetry News

Alice Walker on the immediacy of digital publishing November 17, 2010: Alice Walker spoke to Googlers as part of their authors series back in October about her latest book of poetry, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing and why she chooses to publish some poems directly online through her website: I started on a website on the day that Obama won the election. And I’m not sure exactly why I did it that way, but [...] by Harriet Staff

Steve Orlen November 17, 2010: Nate Pritts, poet and editor of H_NGM_N, has passed along news that poet and teacher Steve Orlen has died. Here's Orlen's poem "In the House of the Voice of Maria Callas" from the Poetry archive: In the house of the voice of Maria Callas We hear the baby’s cries, and the after-supper Rattle of silverware, and three clocks ticking [...] by Harriet Staff

Daily Dose of Dada November 17, 2010: Here’s your daily dose of dada, a sound poem entitled “L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer,” written in 1916 for the Caberet Voltaire by Tristain Tzara, Richard Hulsenbeck and Marcel Janco. Wonderful madness, featuring non-human human sounds. According to the description on Ubuweb, where the poem now lives: "L'amiral Cherche Une Maison [...] by Poetry News

From Here to Césaire November 17, 2010: Steven Fama’s blog boasts new translations of five poems from Aimé Césaire’s 1948 book, Soleil cou coupe, which will be published as Solar Throat Slashed (!). The translations are by A. James Arnold, who has written widely on post-colonial literature and the French language, and Clayton Eshleman, who seems to have translated everything, [...] by Harriet Staff

What’s Lost is Found (on the internet) November 17, 2010: A Behrle-esque website called American Poetry Dot Biz, which features a large picture of some kind of McRib-y thing in front of an American flag on its homepage, does not seem, at first glance, to promise any treasures. But wait! Treasures only appear where they are not promised! John Wieners' terrific and terrifically melancholy first book, [...] by Poetry News

Exploring the brain on metaphor November 16, 2010: It shouldn't surprise those of a poetic persuasion to learn that similar brain activities control both empathy and the ability to process metaphor. The human tendencies to relate to others and to form relationships from abstraction are the two most basic requirements of enjoying literature: appreciating language and then letting it go to work on [...] by Harriet Staff

Cut it out, Foer November 16, 2010: Apparently, superstar novelist Jonathan Safran Foer did not “write” his newest book, but is instead carving a new book out of an already existing book. Good Design Daily reports: To create what Fast Company describes as "an interactive paper sculpture," Foer enlisted the help of the Belgian designer Sara de Bondt and a team from Die [...] by Poetry News