Pandora’s gift (2) April 30, 2011: I think I remember accurately the last time I bought, or otherwise sought out, a book of brand new poetry based on a critic's printed poetry criticism (not a chat or a live event, but something I read). It wasn't last week: it might have been late last year. How often do you seek out the books that printed criticism recommends? If the answer is [...] by Stephen Burt

Someone Else’s Anthology: A Cautionary Tale April 30, 2011: I still can’t believe I went for the okey doke, given that I didn’t have a minute to waste effing around. Translation is not my poetry bag, but occasionally, I need some fun. And being in yet another anthology with the nation’s most reputable contemporary poets is always a draw. (I’m in over a hundred-and-fifty of them, poetry, fiction and [...] by Wanda Coleman

Rewriting Walter Benjamin’s “The Arcades Project” April 30, 2011: For the past five years, I have been working on a rewriting of Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project set in New York City in the twentieth century called Capital. As of this writing, the book is about 500 pages long, approximately half way to the 1000+ pages that constitutes Benjamin's book. The idea is to use Benjamin's identical methodology in [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

Poetry as Event: Belladonna* April 30, 2011: SQ: Rachel Levitsky, Belladonna* has been operating out of New York for nearly a decade now, and in that time has hosted the most innovative women writers of our time. Most of these women, save for a few key names, are largely unknown in the larger poetry world. In fact part of your mandate is to give those women who aren't receiving support a [...] by Sina Queyras

Following the Light: The End of National Poetry Month April 30, 2011: “I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing.” — Robert Hass, “Faint Music” In the morning, my man and I work in the kitchen. He writes about horse racing and I work on freelance [...] by Ada Limón

Pandora’s gift (1) April 30, 2011: Is our conversation ending? The month's up, so, yes. A few quick replies and then one big slice of self-doubt, warily resolved, in the end, with the aid of frustrating software. Jeffrey: speed chess is not playoff basketball because playoff basketball is a team sport and requires cooperation on offense and defense, whereas speed chess is [...] by Stephen Burt

Poetry and race April 30, 2011: I’m kinda surprised that there hasn’t been any commentary on Harriet this month about the biggest and most heated discussion in the poetry world this spring—Claudia Rankine’s public questioning at the most recent AWP conference of Tony Hoagland’s poem “The Change.” Daisy Fried contributed a post just a few days ago that analyzed [...] by Alan Gilbert

ALAN’S POEM April 30, 2011: is very New York. There’s jokes about sandwiches growing lousy in the heat of a rotisserie and then of course the regimen of an endless social reality:   Every performance implies a spotlight, even if it means driving through the night to get there, mouth wired open in a grimace or grin…     These quotes [...] by Eileen Myles

I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone April 30, 2011: Somewhere in my notebooks are definitions for “adage” and “aphorism.” I wrote them down while reading a poem by Anna Moschovakis titled “Untitled.” When I re-read it, I open the dictionary again. This time I know what will happen. I'll happily play word zigzag and then find myself in a word maze: (more...) by Emily Warn

Henry Morro’s New Gig April 29, 2011: Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life, Confucius purportedly said. On a recent visit to Southern California, while discussing the major influences on her work, Utah Poet Laureate Katharine Coles (Fault), director of the Utah Symposium on Science and Literature, mentioned that her parents were scientists. [...] by Wanda Coleman