Kay Ryan and A.E. Stallings Win MacArthur Fellowships September 20, 2011: The New York Times alerts us to the fact that long-time Poetry magazine contributors Kay Ryan and A.E. Stallings were among the 22 "geniuses" (not pictured) selected for this year's MacArthur Fellowships, which come with a 500k purse: This year, as in years past, the 12 men and 10 women selected are a mix of the well known and the little [...] by Harriet Staff

Borders, we hardly knew ye September 19, 2011: America said farewell to its second-largest bookseller this weekend, in a flurry of vegetarian cookbooks, literary board games, and deeply-discounted industrial espresso machines. But the big box retailer’s loyal patrons weren’t letting a little thing like liquidation get them down! The Huffington Post reported from New York: The scene [...] by Harriet Staff

“Thank God this country has a poet laureate.” September 19, 2011: And then there's this from the fair and balanced folks at The Onion: "Distressed Nation Turns to Poet Laureate for Solace." Says some things about how some people feel about some things (i.e., the value of poetry), don't it? We'll let the article speak for itself: "We've long relied on our poet laureates as a beacon of hope in times of [...] by Harriet Staff

London Review of Books on Ern Malley, Doris Lessing, & “Hoaxer’s Backlash” September 19, 2011: Ian Hamilton explores the highish and lowishness of the literary hoax in a "Diary" for the London Review of Books. As a long-ago "anonymous hack" for the Times Literary Supplement, Hamilton used to drum up rather flimsy content when news was slow: "The idea was to mop up publications which were not considered worth full-scale reviews but which [...] by Harriet Staff

Common talks with Jon Stewart about White House poetry scandale September 19, 2011: Once upon a spring, a rapper and poet named Common was called upon by his country (Michelle Obama) to read poems at the White House...remember? The ensuing controversy over the invitation was, in fact, all over the news. Well, Common's back; he's got a new book! When he went on the Daily Show on Wednesday night to talk about it, he and Jon [...] by Harriet Staff

Buffalo Poetics Program Celebrates 20 Years with Scads of New Recordings at PennSound September 19, 2011: According to Charles Bernstein, the Buffalo Poetics Program is marking its 20th anniversary by archiving a poemload of readings from their Buffalo poetry series, Wednesdays @4, over at PennSound. Bernstein offered a mission statement over at Jacket2: The founding core faculty introduced the program with this statement: While poetics [...] by Harriet Staff

New Rimbaud Translation to Feature Five Unknown Poems September 19, 2011: According to this article from The Independent, a new collection of Rimbaud translations, by famed translator Oliver Bernard, will feature five previously unpublished poems, in Latin, written when the poet was fourteen years old. The book will be published by Anvil Press. Bernard has returned to Rimbaud almost 50 years after his Penguin [...] by Harriet Staff

The Week We Brought You the World September 16, 2011: ACADEMIA – Rage! Betrayal! Spreadsheets! Everyone’s talking about the Poets & Writers MFA rankings. First, the Big Ten won big. (It’s actually the Big Dozen now, but, tradition.) Immediately, things got heated. P&W attempted to explain itself. Slate chimed in, counterintuitively. Even The New Yorker wanted a piece of this. Who [...] by Harriet Staff

Social networking in 1920′s bohemia September 16, 2011: Harry Kemp could have been a heavyweight of the twittersphere: a hundred years before google +, his circle of associates covered actors, tramps, poets, socialists, seafarers and book editors. This month, UT Austin does a little retroactive mapping of Greenwich Village social ties, with a new online exhibit, “The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: [...] by Harriet Staff

Brunel University’s Rastafarian-in-residence September 16, 2011: Kung-fu-practicing reggae stars make the best creative writing professors--that's the word on the street over in Uxbridge, anyways, where Brunel University's English department will welcome Benjamin Zephaniah this month. Zephaniah is known for his performance poetry--a 2009 BBC poll ranked him England's third favorite poet after Eliot and [...] by Harriet Staff