July’s Evening Will Come June 30, 2011: We can't help but notice that the July issue of Evening Will Come has just gone up: the newish online magazine, founded in November 2010 by Joshua Marie Wilkinson (now edited with others), features a selection of poets on the first of each month, in minimalist mode: they simply present their poetics (poetic themselves). Previous issues have [...] by Harriet Staff

Dean Young Still Needs Your Help June 30, 2011: As we've reported here and here, Dean Young was having serious heart trouble, and thankfully got a much needed transplant. While this is wonderful news, the procedure still takes its toll financially, and will continue to do so for the rest of Dean's life. Luckily, many folks are stepping up to help out through donations and fundraisers. A brief [...] by Harriet Staff

The Sad Effects of Alzheimer’s on Poet Jack Agüeros June 30, 2011: The New York Times' City Room writes about New York poet and community advocate Jack Agüeros today. Former director of El Museo del Barrio for almost a decade starting in the mid-’70s, Agüeros now suffers from Alzheimer's disease. He has forgotten "that he is the author of four books and a handful of plays. He wrote sonnets and satiric psalms [...] by Harriet Staff

Unhampered by Sanity: Poetry History Shall Have Baroness Elsa June 30, 2011: In a new, comprehensive feature on Jacket2, they're looking at the most famous woman in Dada, polymorphous artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. The Baroness has been the focus of much cultural study over the last decade, but has dropped out the bottom of the American poetry narrative. And so: "We locate and situate her poetry in [...] by Harriet Staff

Mary, Mary, where ya goin’? Mary, Mary, why ya buggin’? June 30, 2011: Of Lamb, Matthea Harvey's re-telling of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb," with illustrations by Amy Jean Porter, debuts on the contemporary best seller list this week at #3. Joyce Carol Oates said the book is "a work of such subtle, haunting, spellbinding beauty it is virtually impossible to describe it." So we won't even try, except to [...] by Harriet Staff

Mark Strand Gives Up Poetry! Again! June 30, 2011: In an strangely humorous interview with Tablet Magazine ("A New Read on Jewish Life"), 77-year-old poet Mark Strand explains that he has given up poetry to make art. Apparently this is the second renouncing (his first hiatus lasted five years): "I have nothing left to say," he told Tablet; and continues to remark on Richard Howard's writing of [...] by Harriet Staff

SINCERELY, BRUCE CONNER: A Final Work-in-Progress? June 29, 2011: As has often happened in my encounters with great artists, I had no idea who Bruce Conner was the first time I met him in the mid-’90s. I’d driven an art critic I knew to Conner’s house in the Glen Park neighborhood of San Francisco for an interview and just ran the tape recorder while Conner told stories stretching back to the first [...] by Garrett Caples

The Next Top Nigerian Poet (or, Biggest Loser joke goes here) June 29, 2011: Make way for African Poet, the first ever literary reality tv show. According to an article from the (perhaps not super-reputable?) Net News Publisher: Thirty-two Nigerians between the ages 18 and 35 will compete for the star prize in the first ever literary television reality show in Nigeria, entitled ‘The African Poet’, organizers of [...] by Harriet Staff

Newly Discovered Phone Log for Robert & Bobbie Creeley: A Day in the Life June 29, 2011: Charles Bernstein recently announced a newsworthy addition to Robert Creeley's PennSound page--a phone log discovered in the the reel-to-reel tapes of Creeley's archive, detailing a day in the life circa 1968 between the poet and then-wife Bobbie Creeley (writer Bobbie Louise Hawkins). The couple was living with their children in Placitas, New [...] by Harriet Staff

Anthropologist Wants to Literally Dig Up Shakespeare to Confirm He Was a Toker June 29, 2011: The Melville House blog MobyLives has pointed us to a real doozy over at Time Magazine, where they're featuring the newest Kickstarter project to get behind: the director of the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Francis Thackeray, would like to "dig up Shakespeare’s grave—along with the [...] by Harriet Staff