“Cheep like the cricket”: Looking at Djuna Barnes’s Ryder May 26, 2011: MAKE Magazine has Len Gutkin reviewing the 2010 Dalkey Archive reprint of Djuna Barnes’s 1928 novel Ryder, the modernist and rather bawdy work that drew heavily on her childhood experiences (and set up the author herself as patriarch Wendell Ryder) and was influenced by the shifting of styles befitting one James Joyce. Ryder was also briefly [...] by Harriet Staff

Yvonne Rainer to Publish Book of Poems May 25, 2011: The extraordinary modern dancer, choreographer, artist and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer, most recently the author of the memoir, Feelings are Facts: a Life (published by MIT Press in 2006), can now add poet to her hyphenates. Badlands Unlimited, a press started in 2010 with a focus on limited-edition books, e-books, and artist works, will be [...] by Harriet Staff

After 30 Years, a New Edith Sitwell Biography May 23, 2011: Poet and biographer Richard Greene, who teaches at the University of Toronto and won a Governor General's Literary Award in 2010, has written a new biography of Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964), reports the Montreal Gazette. Long overdue (the last bio of Sitwell was A Unicorn Among Lions, published in 1981), Edith Sitwell: Avant Garde Poet, [...] by Harriet Staff

Say you, say me, SASE May 19, 2011: Do you want to know entirely too much about the magazines you send your poems to? You're in luck! Duotrope's Digest, "an award-winning, free (sort of) writer's resource listing over 3400 current Fiction and Poetry publications"  gathers data from writers on everything from response times to acceptance rates to whether or not a certain magazine [...] by Harriet Staff

“Children’s book for adults” ransacks bestseller list with help from pirates May 17, 2011: You might not be able to read the bedtime story Go the Fuck to Sleep to your children, but you can certainly read them the reassuring tale in The Bay Citizen about how a bunch of PDF pirates illicitly propelled the book to Amazon's number one bestseller before it was even published. Once upon a time, the kingdoms of the RIAA and the MPAA waged [...] by Harriet Staff

Mark your calendars! UDP Art Auction and Party on May 24 May 16, 2011: If you didn't win the Elizabeth Zechel painting or Ish Klein's fuzzy sculptural animals at the Lungfull auction (darnit), you have another chance to try your bidding hand at this year's aptly titled Ugly Duckling Presse Art Auction and Party. The UDP Art Auction and Party, co-sponsored by The Brooklyn Rail, will raise much-needed monies [...] by Harriet Staff

The Fluxus Reader now a click away May 13, 2011: Students, scholars, and artists alike (not to mention fans of John Cage, Jackson Mac Low, La Monte Young, Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, Jonas Mekas, Allan Kaprow and Marcel Duchamp, among other compatriots of the Fluxus movement) will be pleased to know that The Fluxus Reader, edited by Ken Friedman in 1998, is now available as a free [...] by Harriet Staff

Final version of Celan’s The Meridian published May 11, 2011: Both Hyperion Art Journal and Charles Bernstein have pointed out that Paul Celan's The Meridian, a speech written for his 1960 acceptance of the Georg Büchner Prize in literature, has been republished in a definitive edition by Stanford University Press, translated by Pierre Joris and edited by Bernhard Böschenstein and Heino Schmull. The [...] by Harriet Staff

Wisconsin protest poetry civilizes the debate May 10, 2011: The Fon Du Lac Reporter talks to Sarah Busse and Wendy Vardaman, co-editors of the journal Verse Wisconsin about their recent call for poetry tackling the political battles in the state. They have received 150-200 submissions in genres that range far outside of poetry, including "songs, music videos, art and essays," a sign that public debate is [...] by Harriet Staff

Ethan Coen scoffs at 2012, releases poetry collection post-apocalypse May 9, 2011: Ethan Coen is taking a big bet against the ancient Mayan calendar, releasing his second collection of poetry, The Day the World Ends, well, um, after the world would have theoretically ended. The Los Angeles Times' Jacketcopy reports that Coen — one half of the legendary team of filmmaking brothers who know a thing or two about setting an [...] by Harriet Staff