The Audiatur Festival 2007 October 28, 2007: Approximately a month ago, around the end of September, I flew to Bergen, Norway, in order to perform at the Audiatur Festival—a multilingual extravaganza for the avant-garde, at which many celebrated performers of both phonically-based poetry and constraint-based poetry attended, including the likes of Tomomi Adachi (from Japan), Caroline [...] by Christian Bök

dead poets. July 31, 2007: I try not to think about dying much. Whenever I do, naive as it may be, I dismiss it as something that happens to other people, usually in very spectacular ways. A longago plague sweeps through eastern Europe. A car bomb explodes in a crowded bazaar. A distraught lover climbs over a rail and leaps into the drink. Splashy demises always seem so far [...] by Patricia Smith

Poetry Out-Loud Finals May 3, 2007: A jazz combo played short standards during the period between each contestant. Scott Simon’s face was too far away for me to think of him as anything but a voice as he read the names of the young people coming on stage to perform. He was witty, as completely giddy about the proceedings as he does when he is interviewing someone who is supposed [...] by Kwame Dawes

Race/Poetry Symposium April 1, 2007: I don’t go to church, so poetry readings are the closest thing I have to a communal spiritual experience. I think something happens when we come together and honor one another with our attention and break breath. I sometimes define poetry as “chiseled breathing”, but maybe for the purpose of metaphor, the better word is “leavened”. [...] by Jeffrey McDaniel

more about Los Angeles March 24, 2007: One cool thing about being a poet in Los Angeles, (a strange positive that perhaps came from being in the shadow of Hollywood, faraway from the power brokers of the literary world), was that when I met other literary writers I was genuinely excited, and there was a lot of space for unconventional things to happen organically. For instance, in [...] by Jeffrey McDaniel