AWP : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

Archive for the ‘AWP’ Category

—(point of departure – 1) When I taught a week-long “writing workshop” at Naropa last summer, after the first of four meetings, I received a note from a student in my mailbox. She said that she found the material I had presented interesting, but felt that she needed to concentrate more on her own writing. What is this elusive “writing”?

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03.02.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Emily Warn

“Books Every Poet should Read (But Probably Hasn’t).”

Recommended reading from the editors on the AWP panel “Books Every Poet should Read (But Probably Hasn’t).”

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03.01.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Emily Warn

A Book Is Published Every 30 Minutes

Michael Wiegers, editor at Copper Canyon Press, pulled out this fact to explain why he organized a panel called “Books Every Poet should Read (But Probably Hasn’t).”
“With so many books coming out, the publishing industry puts serious marketing pressures on literary titles and can end up silencing them,” he said.
The idea was for the panelists—editors from other small poetry presses—to recommend books that for one reason or another have stopped circulating. A packed crowd under four gigantic faux crystal chandeliers in Ballroom A at the Hilton in Atlanta clearly disoriented the panelists. Who were these people? Instead of shoving manuscripts in editors’ faces, they were scribbling down book titles to, uh, maybe buy?

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Patricia Smith

Red Carpet Treatment at AWP

Maybe it’s how much we’ve been bombarded recently by the particularly icky, and frustratingly addictive, aspects of celebrity. Maybe because I’m mesmerized as Anna Nicole grabs a buzzing blade and opts for bald, Britney Spears weeps openly in a courtroom after deciding to bury herself in the Bahamas and James Brown—could it be?—finally calls it quits with that skanky golddigger Cameron Diaz and—after spilling his woes to a gushing Oprah—is adopted immediately by Brangelina. Maybe it’s because the sprawling Associated Writing Programs conference (sometimes referred to as “too many panels, too little time”) just happens to come on the tail end of the Oscars this year. And maybe it’s because I’m tired of Hollywood grabbing the headlines and having all the juicy fun while we poets twirl dutifully in dimmer orbits, sipping chai, submitting to Kingsley Tufts, and sharpening our pencils.

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