Medal of Freedom goes to Maya Angelou February 16, 2011: President Obama awarded Maya Angelou the Medal of Freedom in a White House ceremony yesterday. His short speech about the poet praised her poems for their inspirational quality (which also, apparently, inspired his mother to name his sister Maya). Here's an excerpt: Dr. Maya Angelou. Out of a youth marked by pain and injustice, Dr. Maya [...] by Poetry News

The animals, the animals, let’s read poetry to the animals… February 15, 2011: The title of this video says it all: Michael McClure reads poetry to lions in this 1966 edition of Richard O. Moore's USA Poetry Series. He describes the act of reading poetry to animals as an experiment, and he definitely succeeds in getting a response from his audience: check out the McClure vs. lion growling match at about 3:18. Also check [...] by Poetry News

Thoughts On Yes And No February 15, 2011: On Thursday, February 24, at 6pm, Poetry magazine, the Poetry Foundation, the Columbia College Poetry Program, and the Center for Book and Paper Arts present: Performance Poetry in the Age of Language + Reception, featuring Edwin Torres. After the reading, the Center for Book and Paper Arts will host a reception for guests, where a selection [...] by Poetry Foundation

Dean Rader wants to know, Who do you love? February 15, 2011: Taking a cue from Anthony Tommasini's New York Times quest to pinpoint the greatest composers, Dean Rader put the call out to San Francisco Chronicle readers hoping to give poets the same treatment. This is by no means a consensus project; Tommasini's responses reached 1,500 and while he eventually published his own list, the idea that there [...] by Poetry News

The Paris Review talks with Kevin Young about Ardency February 15, 2011: In a short web interview, the chatty lit mag talks with Young about his new book (Ardency), his forthcoming memoir (the Grey Album), and poetry remixes: . . . you’re interested in the DJ aesthetic in your other work. In 2004, you published a remix of To Repel Ghosts, your collection about the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. How do you [...] by Harriet Staff

The Burroughs BM Project: An investigation into bio mutancy through the art of doodoo February 15, 2011: William Burroughs's preserved feces are the material for a new bio-art project, according to, of all places, AOL news. Here's the description of the project, helmed by artists Adam Zaretsky and Tony Allard: Zaretsky, who has a background in biotech, and Allard, a college professor in San Diego, say their plan is to "take a glob" of the [...] by Harriet Staff

The Controversy over Controversy February 15, 2011: Seth Abramson admirably attempts to sum up basically everything in a new blog post. He takes on three “controversies” at once: the hubbub around Tony Hoagland’s “The Change,” Juliana Spahr’s recent essay on the decline of social activism in poetry communities, and VIDA’s count. And he ties it all together. Here’s our reductive [...] by Harriet Staff

Eileen Myles goes beyond the pie charts February 15, 2011: Poet, novelist, and former Harriet blogger Eileen Myles has posted a thorough response to the recent VIDA count for The Awl, and while she says that the results are not surprising, she chalks it up not to misogynist editors, but to the persistence of patriarchy. As she says, a mother and a country love a son. But the more striking aspect of the [...] by Harriet Staff

The future of poetry: Rapid 3D prototyping! February 14, 2011: We've seen video poetry all across YouTube, JavaScript navigations of Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson, and even a few Prezi poems, so what does the next advancement in technology mean for poets? ALA TechSource explores what the terrain might look like if libraries adopted 3D printing and fabrication technology. This would be a natural [...] by Poetry News

Robert Graves on film: “He is a fine enough writer to rise above any scandal” February 14, 2011: The Telegraph reports on the film The Laureate about Robert Graves' private life, set to begin filming later this year with Orlando Bloom in the title role. Though Roya Nikkhah describes the movie as setting out to "challenge that legacy, depicting Graves as a sexually adventurous bohemian embroiled in scandal," no one with a stake in the film [...] by Poetry News