Palo Alto, CA February 21, 2011: Who: Elijah Meeks, with Peter Chan and the AIMS project What: Robert Creeley’s Digital Correspondence Maps When: Ongoing Where: Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. “Open Door” features audio, video, and online media to document dynamic interactions between poetry and its audience. “Open Door” showcases performance, scholarship, [...] by Nicole Mauro

Fact-checking poetry February 18, 2011: According to an article in the Observer, the New Yorker fact-checks its poetry just as it would any other article. (!). There's a brief account of a Richard Wilbur poem being rejected because Wilbur would not change the poem to be more "accurate." For example: Of recent conundrums, Mr. Canby recalled a vexing poem by Philip Schultz, "At the [...] by Harriet Staff

Try reading that poem as a string of numbers February 18, 2011: With all the screeching about how new media technologies such as "texting" and "googling" (whatever those are!) are altering our attention-spans, it's interesting to see a study that tries to pin down exactly how our relationship to language might be changing. Sascha Topolinski at the University of Würzburg, Germany, decided to test whether [...] by Harriet Staff

The Economy of Friendship February 18, 2011: Ellen Pearlman reviews the new book of letters between Kerouac and Ginsberg for the Brooklyn Rail. As one might expect, the review takes the form of a highlights reel, and though Pearlman doesn’t quote the texts at length, she gives us a nice summary of the trajectory of the friendship, in terms of emotional and economic life. For example, the [...] by Poetry News

John Ashbery reads from his translation of Rimbaud at the New School February 18, 2011: Via The Best American Poetry, John Ashbery reads his translation of Arthur Rimbaud's "Promontory" from Illuminations. Originally published in 1886, Norton will release Ashbery's translation in May, though not with his above comments about scholars' endless attempts to track Rimbaud through Scarborough just because he mentions it in the poem. [...] by Poetry News

Dude, where’s my canon? National Book Foundation contextualizes past poetry winners February 18, 2011: In January, the National Book Foundation announced the forthcoming launch of its blog dedicated to National Book Award-winning poetry. Well, as of February 14th, the blog is upon us! Starting will William Carlos Williams in 1950, each entry is written by a contemporary poet and contains biographical information, contextual background on other [...] by Poetry News

…or how I learned to stop worrying and NOT win poetry contests February 18, 2011: On the Poetic Asides blog of Writer's Digest, retired prolific judge of poetry contests Miriam Sagan offers some helpful advice for those who are just sick to death of the adulation from screaming fans camped out on their lawn that result whenever their poetry takes home a prize. Sagan's guest post is drawn from many years of experience, but [...] by Harriet Staff

File under: Yes, please February 18, 2011: Check out this video of actor Michael Winslow (Motor Mouth from the Police Academy movies!) reciting the history of the typewriter in sound effects. Winslow imitates the unique sounds of various machines, giving the history of printed text an audio component. by Poetry News

Brown’s International Writers Project Fellowship seeks support of its own February 18, 2011: The Brown Daily News reports that thanks to two major gifts this month, Brown's Literary Arts Program and The Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies will be able to continue to fund their International Writers Project Fellowship—but only for the next two years. Visiting professor of literary arts Robert Coover has made it a goal to [...] by Harriet Staff

New anthology writes the history of conceptual writing February 17, 2011: The introductions for Against Expression, the new anthology of conceptual and procedural writing edited by Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith, are available as a free download on Ubu. Goldsmith’s intro addresses the question of “why now?”: Why are so many writers now exploring strategies of copying and appropriation? It’s simple: the [...] by Harriet Staff