Here’s a well-assembled list of poetry landmarks in America, courtesy of Poets.org. Okay, who’s going to tackle the world’s list? I’ll nominate T. S. Eliot’s bank, Lord Byron’s battlefields at Messolonghi, and Sylvia Plath’s kitchen to start with …
A few weeks ago we began inviting small publishers of any size to send us review copies of their work. We review anything from bestsellers to chapbooks at LitKicks, but we’re hoping to focus more closely on a territory in the modern literary landscape that’s neglected by most book reviews or litblogs: high-quality books from small or regional non-affiliated presses or individual self-promoting authors.
The vast sprawl that surrounds high-finance corporate publishing is more than the minor league of literature. It’s a …
A disturbing report has just come in: tomorrow’s New York Times Book Review has been invaded and occupied by the Times’ News desk.
The evidence shows that several foreign policy journalists and think-tank types have moved into the Book Review’s literary territory, evicting aesthetes, academic theoreticians and fiction/poetry-scene gossip mongers from their familiar positions. The iron curtain of political journalism has even fallen over the cover layout, which features the large title “IRAQ”, an illustration of a bloodied flag (how original), and five …
I’m having trouble keeping up with all the legal challenges Orhan Pamuk is facing in Turkey. Apparently Pamuk keeps giving interviews about the lawsuits against him, which only results in more lawsuits. It’s kind of like that scene in Breakfast Club where the teacher keeps saying “You want another?” and Judd Nelson keeps saying “Yeah.” As Molly Ringwald would whisper: Orhan, stop …
Seriously, much is murky about this whole situation, which makes the nation of Turkey appear ridiculous to the rest …
(U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser is writing a series of columns that highlights poetry and its importance in everyday life. From time to time we’ll share the reprinted columns here, and provide you a chance to add your comments. This short, crisp piece uses a spare amount of words and carefully chosen double meanings to quickly and solidly get the point across — just as the subject of the poem might have done. Although longer, more dramatic epic poems can definitely …
A bunch of people once asked me to name a living author who wrote like Jack Kerouac, and they promptly concluded I was insane when I named the hiphop singer Jay-Z.
Well, I’d like to explain why I think this is true, and why I find Jay-Z’s work so exciting from a literary point of view. It’s not that I think Jay’s the best poet in the hiphop world. That title probably goes to the late Biggie Smalls, who could effortlessly toss out lines …
Panta Rhei (Anemone Achtnich) reports from the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest trade fair for books, multimedia and communication:
“We got up at 5am, hopped on the bus at 7am and endured a three hour train ride (which, in fact was kind of funny, as I got into a surreal conversation with a fat red-haired CD producer lady and a guy who looked like a Yugoslavian hobo and picked up some undefinable mushrooms at an autobahn stop and devoured them while telling fairytales). …
Jonathan Lethem is lashing out at pro-realist critics like James Wood in a fascinating Morning News interview, and I’ve got to jump into the middle of this fray.
The fashionable postmodernist speaks strong words, according to the account by Morning News writer Robert Birnbaum. Lethem answers recent criticism of his writing style by positing himself as a target of oppressive, wealthy literary purists:
“Look, let me be brutal. When you encounter the argument that there is a hierarchy where certain kinds of literary operations — …
Well, poker is a writer’s game, but this writer finished 246th out of 1400-something in the first PokerStars Bloggers Invitational Tournament. I went all-in with jacks up at the flop and lost to a flush on the turn. Next year!
Jonathan Lethem is lashing back at pro-realist critics like James Wood, and I’ve got to jump into the middle of this one.
The fashionable postmodernist speaks strong words in a Morning News interview, positing himself as a target of oppressive, wealthy literary purists:
“Look, let me be brutal. When you encounter the argument that there is a hierarchy where certain kinds of literary operations — which we’ll call ‘realism,’ for want of a handier term, though I’ll insist on the scare quotes — represent the only …
