February 5, 2008
Searchers for the Fecund Minimum #5
The poetry of Joseph Massey may be the most spare of all contemporary poets. They are heavily imagistic, which at first tempts one to make a connection between his poems […]
February 4, 2008
Inchoate on Poetry and Politics
On March 20, 2003, the day President Bush announced the start of the Iraq war, I was in my first year of the MFA program at University of Washington. The […]
February 3, 2008
Russell Edson, the Populist (Or: What I Learned at AWP)
Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics hosted one of the panels at AWP that I was unwilling to miss–a tribute to Russell Edson, the wonderfully irreverent poet working almost exclusively […]
February 3, 2008
The Unbearable Triteness of (not) Being (at AWP or the Superbowl)
February 2nd and 3rd may not ring in the ear like so many other notable dates: July 4th (or 14th if you’re French), December 7th, September 11th, etc. A few […]
February 2, 2008
“Can I Give You A Tattoo?”
Nobody slapped me, but I got few odd looks as I handed out our tattoos in front of the KR table at the AWP Book Fair over the last three […]
February 2, 2008
On Alexei Tsvetkov’s “Notebook”
I subscribe to Poetry, but only for the prose. Yes, I know that sounds like cheating, but I read poetry the way I played football when I was a kid: […]
February 1, 2008
Inchoate at AWP
It is possible that I have become incapable of sustained thought. Maybe you can finish these for me? Or maybe when I leave New York they will grow up? (“Leave […]
January 30, 2008
The Old Become New Again
In today’s paper, David Brooks has an inspiring column about the Barack Obama campaign. Brooks recounts Monday’s endorsement, at American University, of Obama by Caroline and Edward Kennedy, the daughter […]
January 29, 2008
Searchers for the Fecund Minimum #4
Sunday’s New York Times Book Review lists Small Press Distribution’s top ten sellers for the month of December. In other words, what small press poetry books did people get each […]
January 29, 2008
Hand On Chin, With Piercing Eyes
I got a request for an author photo from a publisher last week. That’s one aspect of the writing life that always makes me shudder, and I’ve made it a […]
January 29, 2008
Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest
Ladies and Gents! Announcing: The submissions period for the contest will be open from February 1st, 2008 to February 15th, 2008. All submissions will be accepted electronically via the KR […]
January 29, 2008
Nabokov, Narrative, and the Mighty Adjective
Some names come attached to labels like “master prose stylist.” Nabokov (take a quiz on him here) is one. (For the record, I’m with you, Rob Kunzig, on the question […]