World Class Poetry Blog

Quote of the Day:

If both chairs are dirty, to sit between them is the best place for a poet.

Thanks Yevtushenko

Reginald Shepherd talks about how he started his accidental blog. He says some interesting things in the piece, but one thing I’d like to quote is this:

Google’s Blogger software requires one to set up an account in order to leave a comment, but instead of taking me to the comment page once I had done so, the program sent me to a page to set up my own blog.

This is precisely why I don’t like Blogger. It’s incredibly annoying to have to sign in to comment in the first place. Secondly, when I do sign in then I’d like to be taken to the place where I intended to go and not off somewhere else. Then again, if that hadn’t happened to Reginald Shepherd, we’d have one less literary blog right now.

Excellent reading: Online Vs. Print Publishing

Just for the record, my personal preference is online. I don’t like to wait for a year from a publisher who doesn’t like simultaneous submissions and won’t respond to queries or send acceptance notices. I know publishers are busy. So are writers.

That said, I like publishing in print as well. There’s just something about seeing that by line.

Thanks to Ron Silliman for providing the above links.

A Leaves of Grass-like composition.

“Howl,” the poem that made Allen Ginsberg and City Lights bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti famous, was recorded one month earlier than that event at Reed College.

Poet wins $100,000 award.

Oh, are you entering the contest?

The Kenyon Review is extolling the new forms of literature. The interesting thing about these YouTube videos is that many of them are done by high school students while reading through literature in their classes. I remember reading Great Expectations for the first time. I don’t remember having exactly this reaction to it, but it is entertaining. The Mayor of Casterbridge is one of my all-time favorite classic novels. I found its YouTube version almost as funny as Great Expectations on YouTube. The latter actually uses real “actors,” as opposed to puppets.

From Poetry Foundation:

Five Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships in the amount of  $15,000 will be awarded to young poets through a national competition sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry. Established in 1989 by the Indianapolis philanthropist Ruth Lilly, the fellowships are intended to encourage the further study and writing of poetry. Applicants must be us citizens between the age of twenty-one and thirty-one as of  March 31, 2008.

Erotic religion: A Sermon On The Mound.

Interesting reading if you have some time on your hands.

I’m a little late in blogging about this, but poet Anne Stevenson wrote poetry for 40 years before getting swamped with recognition. After 18, count ‘em, 18 books of poetry, this marathon runner has won three very important American poetry prizes totaling $260,000 in payout. It just goes to show that patience is still a virtue and good things do come to those who wait.

In other poetry news: Doug Holder wrote a brilliant piece in The Somerville News and encourages poets to “build a community wherever you may reside.” That’s a good word, and I second the motion.

Baudelaire and Mallarme: Inventors of poetic style and voices. If you can get past the endless repetition, this prose piece shows why Baudelaire and Mallarme are important voices to study for modern poets.

And here’s my favorite: Poet Taylor Mali defends the teacher …

The Missouri Review selected the winners of its Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize Contest:

Jude Nutter of Edina, MN

Other finalists included:

• Christina Hutchins of Albany, CA
• Paisley Rekdal of Salt Lake City, UT
• Scott Coffel of Iowa City, IA

Edward Byrne of Valparaiso Poetry Review named John Ashbery “Poet of the Year.”

Robert Lee Brewer laments the lack of poetry on America’s book store shelves.

The Blogging Poet is kicking up his campaign for Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere nominations.

The Continental Review is sponsoring the first New Media Open Mic. Perfect!

I couldn’t wait until this evening to make a post. The following items appeared in my inbox this morning along with my Google Alerts for the key terms I track:

Robert Peake laments the late arriving issue of North American Review. What on earth could it mean?

Nicholas Manning wonders if visual poetics and poetry videos should have their own Pushcart Prize. Personally, I think that’s a good question. What do you think?

Finally, a poet named Ezra opened a restaurant called Ezra’s Pound.

While reading my favorite blogs and news stories the last couple of days, I’ve noticed there are quite a few noticeable notables. I’d just like to mention a few:

First, the names of the Best New Poets of 2007 have finally been published. Publishers are beginning to take nominations for 2008.

The Virginia Quarterly Review clues us in on the submission review process. Yesterday on VQR: Gore, Bush, and tete-a-tetes.

The 50 Books/50 Covers competition.

Sally Vickers praises Paul Muldoon’s The End of the Poem.

Ron Silliman on Jean Valentine. As usual, Silliman is exacting in his analysis. If I could choose a critic of my poetry, I’d want it to be Silliman.

Howard Junker on Absinthe.

Nancy Breen shares how (and how not to) submit greeting card verse.

John Hewitt updates us on the status of his novel.

The New York Times lists the 100 notable books of 2007, including Time and Materials by former poet laureate Robert Hass. Any idea how many more are books of poetry?

Jim Harrison talks about Charles Bukowski.

An interview with the woman who wonders What Is This Thing Called Love?

There are still poets against the war. Really?

W.S. Merwin, 80 and still going strong.

The Kenyon Review announces two winners of Pushcart Prizes. “Bicameral” by Linda Gregerson and “War Lullaby” by Meghan O’Rourke, which is simply fabulous. O’Rourke writes for Slate.

Yesterday, KR blew me away with a brilliant critical analysis on the state of the book review in American culture. Noting that many daily newspapers that once published book reviews now do not, or have cut the space allotted for such reviews, the market response has been to make us all reviewers. Amazon allows anyone and everyone to post reviews of books, but are those reviews reliable? You can vote on the reviews to let the reviewer, Amazon, and everyone else know whether certain reviews helped you or not. Personally, I miss the days when experts who can speak the language of form gave us an intelligible defense of their biases. They may not have been perfect - can you say “haughty culture?” - but at least they were informative and stimulating, unlike those Amazon reviews, which can often be scathing and lacking in depth or meaning. Yes, the way we give (and receive) reviews have changed, but that doesn’t mean we should surrender.

Speaking of reviews, if you have a book or a chapbook that you’d like reviewed for the eyes of thousands, let me know. Like Joan Didion, if I like it I’ll review it. If I don’t then I won’t mention it. How much more fair can I be?

Finally, Deborah Ager at 32 Poems shared links to the art work of Ron Mueck. These sculptures are absolutely stunning.

And now, your thoughts?

Here’s a great post on movies that are based on poems. The interesting thing about this list is that there are many movies based on the poems of Robert Service. I had no idea.

In 1982, there was a movie in the U.S. based on the Cremation of Sam McGee, one of my favorites. I was in high school then. I’d never heard of Robert Service. But I did know who he was by 1990 when another movie based on the same poem was made in Canada. I still didn’t know about the movie. You should check out the list, it’s an awesome list.

Elsewhere, I discovered a list of poets who have appeared in movies. The following names came up:

• James Merrill
• Amiri Baraka
• Viggo Mortensen
• Allen Ginsberg
• Robert Haas (yes, that Robert Haas)

A name that was mentioned, but only once, was Charles Bukowski, and that mention was with regard to Factotum, a movie based on a novel of his. Left out was his own biographical movie Barfly. We’ve already talked about actors who have written and published poetry, but what we have not talked about are my own secret acting aspirations. If there are any movie makers out there looking for a poet to feature in their next film, look me up, I’m available.

Winning Writers has announced the winners of its annual War Poetry Contest:

• First Place - Kyle McDonald
• Second Place - Julian Damanas
• Third Place - Aliene Pylant

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass is the winner of the 2007 National Book Award.

Robert Lee Brewer wins the Millennial Poetry School Award for explaining the school’s basic philosophy in explicit and simple terms:

I’ve seen some poets argue that metrical poetry is the only way, while other poets push against forms of any kind. I’ve seen poets say that real poetry should only be concerned with language and structure, while other poets only acknowledge poems with some kind of real meaning at the heart of the poem. All the while, I’ve thought poets and those who love poetry should embrace the whole durned thing–from the teenage boy writing a poem for his unrequited love to the post-grad scholar constructing an anagrammatic series of sestinas that incorporate mythological interpretations of the meaning of pop culture references in the 1980s (hey, whatever floats yer boat).

There are no official rules or sanctioning body for the Millennial Poetry School Award. I just happened to notice that Robert and I agree on this basic tenet of poetics - all forms and structures are valid. To a poet of the Millennial School, all poetic techniques from the past can be drawn upon as well as new techniques and those of the future. Millennial poets invent their own forms and borrow from others. The only rule is effectiveness.

New York Entertainment tells us all how to be a National Book Award Winner.

While I prefer to talk about the winners, it’s significant to sometimes mention the losers. It looks like Amiri Baraka is this week’s big one.

Back to the winners … Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky is getting an award for lifetime achievement in poetry.

Poetry Magazine has published the winners of its annual prizes:

The winner of The Levinson Prize is Mary Kinzie. Kinzie’s poems were published in the November 2006 and September 2007 issues of Poetry Magazine. She won $500.

Conor O’Callaghan won The Bess Hokin Prize and $500 for poems published in May and July/August 2007.

In February 2007, Jason Guriel had prize-winning poems published in Poetry. He is the winner of The Frederick Bock Prize.

The winner of the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize is Heidi Steidlmayer, who was also awarded $5,000. She was published in the June 2007 issue of Poetry Magazine.

Michael Hoffman, for translations from Gottfried Benn published in October 2006, was $500 and The John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize for Translation.

The Friends of Literature Prize was awarded to Todd Hearon for a poem published in January 2007. He won $500.

$1,000 was awarded to Clive James for taking The Editors Prize for Feature Article in the December 2006 and February 2007 issues of Poetry Magazine.

Brian Phillips won The Editors Prize for Reviewing and $1,000 for reviews published in December 2006.

Poetry Magazine is one of the oldest and most respected poetry journals in the U.S. World Class Poetry congratulates each of these winners of these very prestigious prizes.

I recently received a comment from a correspondent of Publisher’s Weekly. That’s quite an honor. And to what do I owe this astonishing brush stroke of humility? A post I made a few weeks ago announcing that my friend Gary Ciocco was the proud winner of the 2007 Bordighera Poetry Prize.

I just want to say that the blog post was not something made in a vacuum. I really like giving such honors to those who deserve it. Which is why I’d like to extend an invitation to any reader of this blog who wins a similar award. Please let me know. I will make an effort to announce the award on this blog for all my readers to see. And who knows? Maybe some famous poet or publisher will stop by and congratulate you on your achievement as well.

A special thanks to Claire Kirch of Publisher’s Weekly for her comment.