Javier Huerta

Why I did not win the Nobel Prize in Literature

Because self-nominations are not accepted.
Because I’m dirty, mean and mighty unclean. I’m a wanted man, Public enemy number one. Understand. So lock up your daughter n’ lock up your wife. Lock up your back door and run for your life. The man is back in town. So don’t you mess me ’round. ‘Cause I’m T.N.T. I’m dynamite. T.N.T. And I’ll win that fight. T.N.T. I’m a power load. T.N.T. Watch me explode.
Because I used to be the owner and manager of an automobile dealership in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, called “Saab Cape Cod.” It and I went out of business 33 years ago. The Saab then as now was a Swedish car, and I now believe my failure as a dealer so long ago explains what would otherwise remain a deep mystery: Why the Swedes have never given me a Nobel Prize for Literature. Old Norwegian proverb: “Swedes have short dicks but long memories.” I came to speak ill of Swedish engineering, and so diddled myself out of a Nobel Prize.
Because my amazon.com sales rank, #315, 882, is too high.

10.10.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (10)

Travis Nichols

Foetry! Get it? Faux-etry!

The sordid ghost of Foetry.com has stalked the internets this past week, with much being made of Stacey Lynn Brown’s tale of contest troubles with Cider Press Review.
According to Brown’s blog—and Cider Press’s Robert Wynne –Brown won Cider Press’s contest last year, but had her award subsequently “revoked” for reasons no one can agree on.
Brown says it was because the editor didn’t like her design ideas, and the editor says it was because Brown didn’t meet her contractual obligations (see Brown’s comment below for clarification)—but whatever the actual reasons, the whole thing has caused many bloggers to weigh in on the strange mania that overtakes poets when contests are involved.
One of the commenters on Brown’s blog was Alan Cordle, a name inextricably bound to the Foetry saga.

08.28.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (65)

Travis Nichols

Laurels

James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress, has selected Kay Ryan to succeed Charles Simic as the next U.S. poet laureate. The Northern California poet will be the 16th poet to hold the post. Full story here.
UPDATE:
Seven responses from around teh internets:
Ron Silliman says Ryan is “the 47th consecutive School of Quietude poet to hold the position in its 71 year history.”
Annie Wagner says not bad.
Vowel Movers say “congratulations Kay Ryan! Your one year of service as PLOTUS entitles you to no power whatsoever!”
Salon
says, “She’s neither folksy and ultra-accessible like the popular Billy Collins nor mandarin and imperious like the critical darling Louise Glück.”
The New Yorker has selected emails.
David Orr is down with Kay.
Daily Kos says being a gay-married Californian is a statement in itself.

07.16.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Travis Nichols

Weekend Project: Compose 8 Bars for Bongo Drums

Via Jason B. Jones at Bookslut, a questionnaire sent by poet and impresario Gerard Malanga to Daisy Aldan back in the real gone days of 1960: Are You a Beatnik?

06.13.08 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Travis Nichols

John Ashbery & Robin Blaser Split the Griffin Prize

John Ashbery and Robin Blaser split the prestigious Griffin Prize for Poetry last night, each taking home a pat on the back as well as $50,000 Canadian.
The 80-year old Ashbery won for his selected later poems, Notes from the Air, and the 83-year old Blaser for his collected poems, The Holy Forest.
The Griffin Prize, in its eighth year, is “the richest poetry prize in the world for a single volume” and celebrates its winners with a gala event in Toronto.
Here is the full story with humorous and touching quotes from both gents. And here’s a photo of the two happy winners courtesy of the Quill Blog:

06.05.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

D.A. Powell

Best New Poets, Most Confusing Deadline

I have an undergraduate student this year whose work is playful, lyrical and surprisingly tender, given its edgy nature. So I thought I would nominate him for the Best New Poets Anthology. Apparently, it’s not as easy as one would hope.

06.01.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7)

Reginald Shepherd

Good News From My World

Now that it’s official, I can finally tell the world that I have, on my fifteenth try (yes, I’ve been applying since 1993), been awarded a 2008 Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. While I would certainly have liked to have received one earlier, this fellowship could not have come at a time when I needed it more, as my medical bills for my cancer treatments and surgeries have been mounting at a frightening rate.
I keep looking at the list of Fellows on the Guggenheim Foundation web site to confirm that my name is still there. Sometimes the world does give one what one needs when one needs it. Just not very often…

04.02.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (13)

Rigoberto González

NBCC Award Finalists

Just returned from the party at City Lights Bookstore. You can check out the finalists for the other categories at the National Book Critics Circle blog Critical Mass, but since I’m on both the NBCC board and on Harriet, I thought I’d post the poetry finalists here.

01.13.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Major Jackson

Right On!

Congratulations to poets Nikki Giovanni, Gregory Pardlo, and Tracy K. Smith. They are finalists for the first annual Essence Literary Award in the category of Poetry. Their books are: Acolytes by Nikki Giovanni; Totem by Gregory Pardlo; and Duende by Tracy K. Smith. All three books are exceptional, and I urge you to read them.
Essence Magazine, founded in the late 1960s, a fashion, lifestyle and entertainment magazine originally geared towards African American women, the first of its kind to do so, has long supported and featured African American writers in its pages and through its annual fiction-writing contest. The Essence Literary Awards comes at an important time, in which, educators, politicians, and parents should stress the importance of literacy, as all indicators and federal reports suggest reading is promptly becoming an obsolete activity of American life.

12.22.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)