National Book Award Winners Announced November 17, 2011: And the results are in! Jesmyn Ward's “Salvage the Bones” won for fiction, Stephen Greenblatt's “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern” won for non-fiction, Nikky Finney's “Head Off & Split” won for poetry and Thanhha Lai's “Inside Out and Back Again” won for young people's literature. John Ashbery got in on the fun, [...] by Harriet Staff

John Yau Steps Down as Arts Editor for Brooklyn Rail November 17, 2011: You think that title says it all, but it doesn't speak nearly as kindly and eloquently about John Yau as The Brooklyn Rail publisher Phong Bui does. Together with Ben La Rocco and Thomas Micchelli, both of whom began to write for us as early as May 2004 and October 2005, respectively, and both of whom joined as co-editors in September [...] by Harriet Staff

Simon Armitage on poetry as a form of dissent November 16, 2011: The Guardian's John Harris takes up the subject of poetry in a recent installment of his national conversations series. A little predictably, he begins with the premise that being a poet These Days is a thankless task and then illustrates poetry's marginality via a series of quick interviews with unwitting pedestrians. But after that he jumps [...] by Harriet Staff

New Chicago Review Features Unpublished Essays by Veronica Forrest-Thomson November 16, 2011: The newest issue of the Chicago Review is out, and excitingly features three unpublished essays by Veronica Forrest-Thomson, a UK poet, critic, and strict adherent to artifice who committed suicide in April 1975 at the age of 27. The essays are accompanied by an introduction and editorial notes, rounding out a feature that nicely complements a [...] by Harriet Staff

HERMAN’S POEM November 16, 2011: I think someone literally shoved a pile of books in my hand this fall. I think I was stooped and looking at his stuff – Here, take em, he growled like I might be a little too shy to accept this gift. Most of them I owned and I deposited the books on one of those ledges that surround little peed-on trees in the east village. But I kept the [...] by Eileen Myles

Brian Eno is Still Making Poetry Cool November 16, 2011: We previously reported on this collaboration between Brian Eno and poet Rick Holland, which resulted in the LP Drums Between the Bells. Now there's a follow-up EP, Panic of Looking. Lucy Jones, for the Telegraph, asked the question "Can Brian Eno make poetry cool?" We think this is a rhetorical question, but here's a bit of what she had to [...] by Harriet Staff

Chechen Poet Murdered in Moscow November 16, 2011: According to this BBC article, Chechen poet Ruslan Akhtakhanov was shot dead in Moscow, in what police are calling a "contract killing." From the article: The 58-year-old was shot several times by an unidentified gunman as he left his car outside his home in north-west Moscow on Tuesday night. Mr Akhtakhanov had opposed the Chechen [...] by Harriet Staff

See Jimmy Fallon as Jim Morrison November 16, 2011: In case you missed it: last Friday, Jimmy Fallon slipped on some leather pants, a silver concho belt, and mod ankle boots to embody the Lizard King himself (who, by the way, Daniel Nester covered in some depth last month for the website). What did he sing? The Reading Rainbow theme song, of course, whose lightly psychedelic lyrics seem a [...] by Harriet Staff

Update: “Mayor Bloomberg: where is the People’s Library?” + Rachel Maddow Visits November 16, 2011: Librarians from the OWS People's Library met at 8:00 a.m. this morning to retrieve the 5,000 books they were told yesterday were being held safely at the Sanitation Department, only to find a very different situation. Their blog reports: We’re getting our first report back from the folks who went to the Sanitation Garage. Mayor [...] by Harriet Staff

“His infidelities gave Williams a bad case of the jitters” November 16, 2011: James Logenbach, for The Nation, wrote a lengthy review of Herbert Leibowitz's William Carlos Williams biography, “Something Urgent I Have to Say to You”: The Life and Works of William Carlos Williams. After discussing the International Exhibition of Modern Art that Williams' thought he attended, Logenbach focuses on Williams', a champion [...] by Harriet Staff