Whitman by Meteor-Light June 2, 2010: Astronomers have tracked down the astral subject of Walt Whitman's poem "Year of Meteors (1859-1860)" after years of trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about: In the July issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, Olson and colleagues reveal that the event was indeed a "meteor progression" – something that occurs when a large [...] by Harriet Staff

William S. Burroughs shoots William Shakespeare May 5, 2010: This video from 1995 is making the rounds on the internet. (via HTMLgiant) by Harriet Staff

The secret to managing is to keep the ones who hate you away from the ones who are undecided April 30, 2010: "And truly, had not the duty I owe unto the importunity of friends, and the allegiance I must ever acknowledge unto truth, prevailed with me, the inactivity of my disposition might have made these sufferings continual, and time, that brings other things to light, should have satisfied me in the remedy of its oblivion.  But because things [...] by Anselm Berrigan

Aside on Expat Life (after Martin Earl) April 23, 2010: I might not be the best person to comment on Martin Earl's account of expatriatism and poetry (A.E. Stallings probably has a deeper perspective, after a decade in Athens). Spending a year abroad here and there can't compare to spending a decade, or two or three. I have met people who did indeed bear signs of a kind of social deformity after a [...] by Ange Mlinko

or, as Eddie said last night to a general audience of interested persons, in order to be obscure someone else has to actually know you’re obscure April 16, 2010: It’s uselessly unhip to penetrate a machine gun and asset a relationship with modern consciousness, which is a perfectly devoured bug off the hind leg of some preserved thing. I have buried deep within my bypass a silent love for the arch of your fierce wistful squeak. I would like to spend time in a failed state with your bending frame. I [...] by Anselm Berrigan

Tings April 13, 2010: Emerson apparently wrote to a student or former student of his and instructed him not to get overly involved with his reading so as to be able to move with enough rapidity through any number of other reading possibilities, to go into books looking for the material needed, get it and get out, often enough, so as to keep moving. Given Emerson's [...] by Anselm Berrigan

April 11, 2010: Allison Cobb has written a terrific book on, through, and with the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. The book, Green-Wood, an instantly compelling and fluid read I’m finding thus far, made of prose and poetry driven by a thoroughly researched and idiosyncratic historical sensibility in combination with six years’ worth of daily walks through [...] by Anselm Berrigan

Kegels For Poets April 11, 2010: This is the best set of exercises you’ll ever learn. The Poetry Muscle exercises known as Meter Kegels have many advantages. They are best known to help strengthen and tone the whole poetic floor to prevent things like linguistic incontinence during middle age. But they are also the secret to Pompoir, turning oneself on inspirationally, and [...] by Annie Finch

Just folded, like a handkerchief or a hinge. April 5, 2010: These prefab greens are part of a sale system of red dots reserved for those whose demise was thought predetermined by the timing of their abuses. You are asleep under a stitched face sold for warmth between scales of extremes in snowfall, memorial readings of butterfly attacks on Seventh Ave., and the exile’s couplets refusing dream's capacity [...] by Anselm Berrigan

Dung and Glitter February 4, 2010: Morning, in Colorado, if I'm not teaching or trying to make a school lunch my offspring will actually eat, involves a second cup of Double Bergamot Earl Grey tea and a quick skim of The Guardian, online, with the memory of pretending to read it, a broadsheet, upside down in bed, with my dad.  The paper, not me.  I was two. Thus, a few days [...] by Bhanu Kapil