August 17, 2008
…And This Is Your Brain on the Internet
At the beginning of every semester, I ask my students to be diligent and earnest in their reading and research. “Go into the library,” I say. “Smell the books. Use […]
August 10, 2008
Poetry, this weekly inter-ocean of
8/5 Spotted: Oni Buchanan, Darcie Dennigan, and Abraham Smith on a roof in New York City. Ms. Buchanan is working on poems courting text msgs, using only letters without ascenders or descenders. Ms. Dennigan, formerly of Los Angeles and now of Rhode Island, read her wild "Orienteering in the Land of the New Pirates," which you must find, here. And Mr. Smith, tea-potting himself over the microphone, poured whim man mammon from his bright green tee-shirt.
August 5, 2008
Man On Wire
Why is the question Philippe Petit was asked when he came down from death-courting walk. Petit was (and is, in the film's present) resistant to the question. As he explains at the beginning of the film, his tightrope walking is not about "conquering the universe but, like a poet, conquering beautiful stages."
July 31, 2008
Talk The Way You Write, Write the Way You Talk
The documentary, James Ellroy: Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction, is an overview of Ellroy’s career straight from the author’s mouth. While its attention to LA crime history and Ellroy’s […]
July 28, 2008
Tame Excitement
Marianne Moore's essay on Brooklyn, "Brooklyn from Clinton Hill," is worth finding, a sound piece to get to amidst all l the chirpy pieces about "Brooklyn writers," lately. Her fascination with the place and the anonymity it gave her for over thirty years (thirty years in the same apartment!) opens up the neighborhood again for me.
July 18, 2008
Forget Dewey Decimal
Check out this library’s color coding system, via MoCo Loco. There are fourteen pictures of it at Valerie Madill’s site. I think I’m in love. Also, do you feel like […]
June 23, 2008
Sometimes It Is
If now were a time for thinking, I would write about a smart and expansive discussion happening right now on the Poetry Foundation blog. It’s about poetry, politics, and class. […]
June 5, 2008
What “Apple” Means to Your Brain
I’ve found that one of the most consistently rewarding places for me to go in my online wanderings is Science Daily. They report on recent studies & discoveries in straightforward […]
May 30, 2008
Words for Clouds
Yesterday I returned home from a trip to Ohio. We began in Oberlin and then moved on to Gambier, home of the Kenyon Review and Tyler Meier, who is in […]
May 26, 2008
Memorial Day
/m????m??ri??l, -??mo??r-/ [muh–mawr-ee-uhl, –mohr-] 1. something designed to preserve the memory of a person, event, etc., as a monument or a holiday. 2. a written statement of facts presented to […]
May 15, 2008
Talking in Bed in Pictures
There are songs and poems that show up in my head without warning. I don’t know why it is that Arlo Guthrie’s “Motorcycle Song” is so very appealing to my […]
May 9, 2008
On Bumps
In his great piece on Philip Whalen, Travis Nichols excerpts a beautiful mess from a Whalen poem, and then comments: Many poets would instinctively cut the opacity and the interiority […]