Lambda finalist Brian Teare interviewed by poet Stephen Motika May 23, 2011: Stephen Motika interviews poet and current Lambda Literary Award finalist Brian Teare over at Lambda Literary. Teare is the author of three full-length books—The Room Where I Was Born, Sight Map, and Pleasure—and he lives in San Francisco. Starting in Fall 2011, he’ll be an Assistant Professor at Temple University. Among topics like [...] by Harriet Staff

Close your eyes. Think of a poet. Does he look like Jack Black? May 23, 2011: Jack Black, fresh off Kung Fu Panda 2, will star in the comedy Bailout(working title), according to Indiewire. The film is based on Jess Walter's novel The Financial Lives of the Poets, a National Book Award finalist, and will be directed by Michael Winterbottom.  Black will play Matt Prior, protagonist of the novel, described by Publisher's [...] by Harriet Staff

Frieda Hughes to Write a Poem Against Wind Farms May 23, 2011: Frieda Hughes, daughter of poet Ted Hughes, "one of the Twentieth Century's greatest nature poets", is none-too-pleased about the wind farm coming to her home in Abermule, Wales, and she's going to write a poem about it. Describing the turbines as protruding like "homeless bits of aeroplane,” she can’t understand why nobody in the Assembly [...] by Harriet Staff

Baron Wormser and the Papago Indians May 20, 2011: Former Maine poet laureate Baron Wormser has his 10th collection, Impenitent Notes, on the contemporary best seller list this week at number 5, having wormed its way (get it?) between Mary Oliver’s Thirst and Swan. Also debuting on the list this week is Native American poet Ofelia Zepeda’s 2008 collection from University of Arizona press, [...] by Harriet Staff

School board members deserve testing too? May 20, 2011: In April 2009, Al Filreis posted the full-length New York Times story from May 2, 2000, about the New York Board of Education finding in their mailboxes some odd reading material from the interim school board chancellor, Harold O. Levy: three Wallace Stevens poems. As the Times noted, he had attached a memo: "Poetry...can give voice to the inner [...] by Harriet Staff

The Steins Collect Wayne Koestenbaum May 20, 2011: "For me, it is I, and it is the only reproduction of me which is always I, for me." Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1906, by Pablo Picasso (collection Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) might be a peacock but it’s only one of many: dozens of works from holdings of the Stein family (that’s our Gertrude, her brothers Leo and Michael, and [...] by Harriet Staff

John Lithgow performs Newt spokesman’s “epic poetry” May 20, 2011: Epic poetry? Some news sources thought so: Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's spokesperson went on an "anti-media tirade" recently in support of Newt after the candidate went wayward on Sunday's Meet the Press. His "poetry" went partly: "The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. . . . Washington cannot tolerate [...] by Harriet Staff

New Mallarmé translations from Peter Manson May 20, 2011: Jerome Rothenberg’s Poems and Poetics features today two new Stéphane Mallarmé translations from the UK poet Peter Manson, who has been working with Mallarmé’s posthumously published (1899) Poésies for over ten years (his first Mallarmé translation effort was, however, in 1992). Manson, a contemporary Scottish poet, is most recently the [...] by Harriet Staff

“What does it take to understand toast?” May 20, 2011: You could pause one tv in one room and then resume watching it in another, or you could read as Michael Earl Craig, Certified Journeyman Farrier, Poet, and former Harriet Twitter extraordinaire tells it like it isn't in his interview with John W. Marshall, Co-Owner of  Open Books, located in Seattle, which is also the hometown of Wave Books, who [...] by Harriet Staff

From the Department of Horrifying News May 19, 2011: While Yemen continues to try to sort out its ongoing political crisis, its citizens suffer. As discovered at Ron Silliman's blog, Yemeni poet, Walid Mohamed Ahmed al-Ramisi had his tongue sliced off, allegedly by members of the Joint Meeting Parties: Local sources said that attackers captured al-Ramisi in Taiz Street and took him to a house [...] by Harriet Staff