Need guides to literary cities? July 26, 2011: Poets & Writers has launched a series of online guides to literary cities! Portland, L.A., Boston and Chicago are first up. We're biased, so we'll focus on Chicago for now. Writes Zach Dodson: Thinking of literary places in Chicago invites nostalgia. For this roundup I was tempted to fall back on some old clichés, to ride Stuart Dybek’s [...] by Harriet Staff

Bookforum Loves On New Translations of Raymond Roussel June 29, 2011: Hooray, Bookforum has got former editor Eric Banks in imaginative territory avec none other than Raymond Roussel (France, 1877-1933). Roussel's writing can be mapped from being "un peu obscur" to achieving cult status, and now--with two new English translations in print--quite accessible, if you can grant such a word to "the enigmatic snare of [...] by Harriet Staff

Talking with the Taxman about Poetry April 25, 2011: Is it worth doing stuff that you don’t get paid for? Earlier this year, I was emailing a friend who had just attended a really entertaining magazine release party that I — and eight or so people — had read at, and I closed my message with “I hope I'll get to hear you read sometime — keep me posted on any events you'll be [...] by Kathleen Rooney

The LA Times Book Prize finalists announced February 25, 2011: And we're happy to see former Harriet blogger Craig Santos Perez on the list! Congrats, Craig. Here is the full list: Henri Cole, Pierce the Skin: Selected Poems, 1982-2007 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Maxine Kumin, Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010 (W. W. Norton & Company) Yehoshua November, God’s Optimism (Main Street [...] by Poetry News

The apocalypse, brought to you by the letters Y, A, L and E February 16, 2011: The Yale Daily News is republishing a dozen visions of the apocalypse commissioned from well known writers at a dollar a word (but because the editors were cash-strapped college kids in 1974, each writer was limited to 20 words). "As the editors noted in that 12th issue of the Magazine, 'The writers that exceeded twenty words did so out of a love [...] by Poetry News

Thoughts On Yes And No February 15, 2011: On Thursday, February 24, at 6pm, Poetry magazine, the Poetry Foundation, the Columbia College Poetry Program, and the Center for Book and Paper Arts present: Performance Poetry in the Age of Language + Reception, featuring Edwin Torres. After the reading, the Center for Book and Paper Arts will host a reception for guests, where a selection [...] by Poetry Foundation

File Under: Yes, please February 4, 2011: Check out this recording of Ashbery reading parts 3, 5, 12, 17, 18 and 30 of Wallace Stevens’ “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven,” in 1989. by Poetry News

Poetry Foundation at AWP! February 1, 2011: If you're able to make the treacherous journey to AWP this year, be sure to find the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine in booth 112! Don't miss us hosting Thursday night's reception, plus the following panels and readings: Thursday, February 3 12-1:15pm: Copyright and Fair Use: a legal review for poets (R158: Wilson A, B, & C Room, [...] by Poetry Foundation

Essays for Robert von Hallberg February 1, 2011: Poetry magazine recently received this welcome dispatch from Chicago Review, with links to PDFs of knockouts from their latest number. From CR editor, V. Joshua Adams: Readers of Harriet may be interested in two essays on contemporary poetry from the latest issue of Chicago Review (55:3—4). In "Apocalypticism: A Way Forward for Poetry," [...] by Fred Sasaki

Is your doctor a heartless automaton who dispenses care soley at the whim of big pharmaceutical companies? If so, he or she is probably not a poet. February 1, 2011: According to The Wall Street Journal, medical schools across the country are putting their students through arts and writing classes, in an attempt to create more empathetic physicians. The idea is that by expressing themselves, by, say, writing poetry, the students will become more in tune with their own feelings, and thus be better able to [...] by Poetry News