Annie Finch

Face Forward: The Poets House Annual Showcase of Poetry Books

For a poet, in April, in New York, there’s a lot going on!  One of the most exciting National Poetry Month events held every year is the Poets House Annual Showcase of the year’s poetry books.  It’s an astonishing event. This year, at the 17th annual showcase, 2,400 books of poetry are displayed at the Jefferson Market Library on 6th Avenue near 10th Street.

The 2009 Annual Showcase Catalog

04.17.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (15)

D.A. Powell

Porno For Poets

Jonathan Mayhew posted the following response to the excerpt of an interview with Philip Levine that I included in a recent blog entry:
“I heard Levine give a reading years back and say he cut his lines in half because the New Yorker paid by the line. He could get paid more for the same poem that way,
just by
doing
this”
I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a criticism or an appreciation. It seems that Mayhew is saying that Levine has altered his art for commercial reasons. To which I respond, “yay, Philip Levine!”

08.05.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (30)

Major Jackson

Celebrity Poetry

What is it about celebrity poets that rile “serious” writers of poetry? With each new collection of poems by an actor or music recording star, envy mounts as does the high levels of indifference by poets and critics, alike. Such books of poetry are roundly dismissed and ignored by the literati, yet inevitably become bestsellers owing to the legions of adoring fans that seem to have an interminable appetite for mediocre verse. Rest assured, such books do not attract prize committees and are rarely reviewed outside of Publishers Weekly or Booklist. One would think, also, given the stratospheric mega-sales, these books would appear on the poetryfoundations.org bestseller lists. Alas, there too, ignored.

01.20.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (19)

Major Jackson

Add to Cart

While Professor Stanley Fish argues the lack of relative worth of the Humanities over at the NYTIMES, I thought I would visit a few of my local, online rare books websites to gauge the fair market value of Poetry (Ruth Lilly, notwithstanding), that is, how much hard cash do works of poetry command in the dangerous, clandestine world of literary intrigue, secular humanism, and covert antiquarian operations.
Wallace Stevens’s art collection and furniture has the distinction of being the most expensive purchase at abebooks.com at a whopping $1.7 million dollars, which itself is followed by Petrarch’s 15th century opera at $400K.
While the below represents a personal wish list, if anyone wants to send me an early birthday gift . . . .

01.16.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7)

Christian Bök

The Nude Formalism

—————–
“When fled I found my love defamed in clang
Of riotous bed she came, along the flues
I harbored there, scarce chance upon harangue
By labors grant the fig of latched amuse
She quakes and bless her soul would harsh realize
That none our maps could burn aboard her ship
And floral hung to lit parts cleared eyes
Left like that elder hap that splits a chip
When dull’s the deed wherewith else back I on
Forewent all trial asleep her carousel
Thread in torching tease turned basilican
Drifting after still much breath-crested scrawl
Hence going beads each langorous thronement
When all I gown errs come again cement”
“Gosh”
from The Nude Formalism
by Charles Bernstein
—————–

12.02.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (8)