Pirating the airwaves over AWP February 1, 2011: Inside Higher Ed is hosting Radio Free AWP this week. Wednesday through Sunday, tune into a ridiculous amount of podcasts (between 4-5 a day, it would appear) featuring readings, interviews, contests, and audio book outtakes somehow involving William Gass and ducks. It’s true pirate radio, internet-style, with some of my literary friends and [...] by Poetry News

Halomadworldlangstonhughes April 27, 2010: After reviewing the audio I recorded wandering the book fair and bars of AWP, I concluded that nothing turned up worth mixing and posting. The best piece I heard was a desperate conversation between two fiction writers smoking outside a bar, discussing how “badass” Yaddo is/was. One had been there several times; the other was fishing for [...] by Nick Twemlow

Afro-formalism April 21, 2010: Rigoberto’s shout-out to Allison Joseph brought to mind the best panel I attended at AWP, titled “Afro-formalism:  Owning the Masters” (after a famous essay by Marilyn Nelson.)  It was on Saturday afternoon, not the most propitious time-slot as a lot of folks were tired or packing up or winding down or just, well, hungover, and so was not [...] by A.E. Stallings

Barbaric AWP April 18, 2010: I am late to the post-AWP wrap-up party, I suppose, but nonetheless, I have a few thoughts about my four-and-a-half days in Denver. One thing, I talked to several people, some friends, some just people, who call themselves Denver residents. They all noted that Denver was a dull place to live. I would remark that I live in Iowa City, Iowa, and [...] by Nick Twemlow

Documentary Poetics April 17, 2010: Yesterday afternoon, Juliana Spahr and I spoke at a graduate student symposium on “Documentary Poetry and the Long Poem” at the University of Utah. The students, primarily from Paisley Rekdal’s class on the subject, presented their own dynamic “documentary” projects on topics ranging from labor and LGBT politics to Appalachia and [...] by Mark Nowak

The Shout-Outs Cometh April 15, 2010: It’s the middle of Poetry Month, so I think we’re obligated to send some love to the poets and their books. This was always one of my favorite posts when I did Harriet back in the day: it’s not exactly like getting singled out from the general audience on The Price is Right, but hey, people of the profession with few monetary rewards are [...] by Rigoberto González

AWP: Some Thoughts 1 April 12, 2010: It’d been six years since my last visit to AWP. This is not a confession. I had a strange time back then, adrift, inadequate feeling. You know, not feeling that I’d done enough, that I wasn’t pulling my own weight as a poet in the world. This is another way of saying that at that point in my career, I was so dependent upon the [...] by Barbara Jane Reyes

Cempasuchitl April 12, 2010: Been enjoying A.E. Stallings’ entries on literary friendships (sorry we didn’t run into each other at AWP, Alicia!) and I was reminded of the good old days at Harriet--sparring with Ange Mlinko, learning from Stephen Burt, getting puzzled by Christian Bök. And towards the end of our tenure back in January of 2008, the always-provocative [...] by Rigoberto González

Literary Friendships, Part II April 11, 2010: Earlier I posted about literary friendships, and indeed I was just at AWP for a panel on the late (is that possible?) Craig Arnold.   One of the most beautiful poem-portraits of literary friendship is surely Callimachus’ Elegy for Heraclitus.  It’s a perfect poem in Greek, in jewel-like elegiac couplets.  But in English, it is much more [...] by A.E. Stallings

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