BBC spotlights Somali poet in hiding January 25, 2011: Somali poet Abdirashid Omar has been in hiding since publishing a poem critical of the Somali Islamist group at war with the interim government. Abdirashid told the BBC why he wrote the poem: When I started doing this poetry initially, the aim was to tackle the social problems, then in December 2009 there was that attack - the Shamo Hotel [...] by Poetry News

Derek Walcott wins T.S. Eliot Prize January 24, 2011: via the Guardian: The winning collection, White Egrets, was described by the chair of judges, poet Anne Stevenson, as "moving and technically flawless". "It took us not very long to decide that this collection was the yardstick by which all the others were to be measured. These are beautiful lines; beautiful poetry," she said. Walcott was [...] by Poetry News

Maybe in episode 4 they’ll take a poet to Ikea… January 24, 2011: Sometimes it seems like NYC is the center of the universe, according, at least, to people who live in NYC. On the one hand, this sort of metropolitan snobbery is exactly what perpetuates the feeling that some people have of being on the periphery, and is exhibit A of what Sarah Palin hates about “elites.” On the other hand, in both cultural [...] by Harriet Staff

Archive Fever January 24, 2011: Rick Gekoski contributes an anecdotal and vaguely Andy Rooney-ish piece to The Guardian, doubting the inherent value of literary archives. Of course, he admits, archives are useful and contribute to scholarly work, not to mention biographies and corrected editions, etc. But there’s also something ugly about them: When first encountered, an [...] by Poetry News

Translators of classical Arabic poetry face challenges beyond the linguistic January 24, 2011: The blog Arab Literature (in English) has a guest post from A.Z. Foreman on the particular challenges facing translators of classical Arabic poetry. The discussion has been ongoing there as well as on Foreman's own Poems in Translation, and this particular post actually arose from the comments section of a previous entry (a sure sign that you [...] by Poetry News

Abusing the albatross in the name of politics January 24, 2011: The Miami Herald's Michael Doyle brings you the literary understatement of the year by way of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner: "Politics can turn poetry upside down." Poetry fits well into today's talking point-driven political rhetoric, particularly well known passages that function almost like a shortcut to a reader's [...] by Harriet Staff

MAST January 24, 2011: 46. Back when considering mess, I suggested an approach akin to ekphrasis. Where the response to non-literary art is neither an ode nor elaborate caption, perhaps barely even a dialogue between the poem and, say, painting. Instead, the poem would attempt to do what the painting does at a dynamic level versus an (a) dialogic or (b) allusive [...] by Douglas Kearney

National Book Critics Circle Award finalists January 24, 2011: Are you sad your pick of the finalists to win the National Book Award didn't pick up the top honor? Well, three of them have another shot! Here are your National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for 2010 in poetry: Anne Carson. Nox. New Directions 
Kathleen Graber. The Eternal City. Princeton University Press 
 Terrance Hayes. [...] by Poetry News

Richard Hugo and the art of meaning what you say January 21, 2011: Some swears in audio. by Harriet Staff

Get Your Freak On January 21, 2011: Impose Magazine's blog, Codex, posted a short piece on the relationship between poetry and "freaks." According to them, the public interest in Jared Lee Loughner's poems gives evidence that poetry, as a genre, is only for the morbid, or the morbidly curious: Is poetry now looked at as part of the freakazoid fringe? Does anyone know a Poet [...] by Harriet Staff