conceptual or literal? April 26, 2010: The Segue Reading Series is New York City’s longest-running platform for avant-garde writing. Started in the mid-’70s, it used to be more commonly known as the Ear Inn series, and was generally the territory of Language poets and their fellow travelers. In the late ’90s, it expanded its roster, and now features a fairly wide range of [...] by Alan Gilbert

NSFW April 24, 2010: For the past decade, visual artist Paul Chan has created a series of customized fonts based on the texts of various poets, writers, social philosophers, artists, and political movements: Stéphane Mallarmé, Charles Fourier, Agnes Martin, ACT UP, etc. Chan uses excerpts from these texts to make fonts that transfigure and disfigure words typed into [...] by Alan Gilbert

Memory traces April 20, 2010: [caption id="attachment_11593" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Dinh Q. Lê. Untitled from the South China Sea Pishkun series (still 1) 2009, c-print, 50 x 89 inches. Courtesy P•P•O•W. "][/caption] For fun and because I found his post provocative, I thought I’d answer the six sets of questions Thom Donovan provided in “For an [...] by Alan Gilbert

WILLA website April 15, 2010: WILLA: Women in Letters & Literary Arts recently launched its website. As outlined in its mission statement, “WILLA seeks to explore critical and cultural perceptions of writing by women through meaningful conversation and the exchange of ideas among existing and emerging literary communities.” Apropos Christian Bök’s recent post [...] by Alan Gilbert

my little AWP April 9, 2010: While various poetry worlds—and Harriet—shift their focus to AWP in Denver this week, there are still plenty of readings and events going on here in New York City. Last night, Dodie Bellamy, Tim Griffin, and Kevin Killian read at White Columns, one of New York’s oldest and most vital nonprofit art spaces. It’s currently overseen by [...] by Alan Gilbert

poets and the academy April 5, 2010: I’d like to try to split the middle between Linh Dinh's and Ange Mlinko’s posts (here and here) on poets and poetry in the academy. As someone who spent ten continuous years in the university as an undergraduate and graduate student, and has now spent twelve years outside of it as an editor and writer, I feel sympathetic to both sides of the [...] by Alan Gilbert

Things I’ve learned while blogging for Harriet . . . August 31, 2008: —that blogging is hard work I have a new respect for people who blog every day. I’m a regular reviewer of art and literature for a variety of publications, and during busy periods I sometimes have a deadline a week. Yet even this doesn’t compare to the rigors of having something intelligent and coherent (not that I always succeeded) to post [...] by Alan Gilbert

Fast poetry August 30, 2008: Mark’s post about the Republican National Convention site being 2.68 miles from his house reminds me—in a non-self-congratulatory way—of the various political protests I’ve attended over the past decade, many of them with poets, some with non-poets, and a few alone. I say “non-self-congratulatory” because what I’ve mostly come away [...] by Alan Gilbert

Poetry’s violent dream August 28, 2008: Blogging for Harriet this summer has felt a little bit like a slow striptease—never knowing how many personal details to reveal, or which parts to keep covered up. It’s my sense that readers enjoy a little bit of personal information (I definitely do), but too much—for me, at least—and I begin to think, Who cares? . . . or worse, if the [...] by Alan Gilbert

Interview with Vivek Narayanan (Part II) August 24, 2008: Alan: In “Four Ground-breaking Things In Five Issues of Civil Lines or, Ways to Get Your Head Out of the Postcolonial Sand,” you make equations between particular historical moments in India and its literature. Here in the United States, writers and artists have worked for eight years under the cloud of the Bush administration, and, to a [...] by Alan Gilbert