July 2, 2007
On Literature and Politics
I’ve been watching with some weariness as the machinery of outrage got warmed up over the last several weeks to grind away again at Salman Rushdie in the wake of […]
June 30, 2007
Young Writers, Part Two
Week one is done, and the workshops roll on. To bring you up speed—since the last post, we’ve started working on pieces in a substantial spectrum–from pieces that spring from […]
June 28, 2007
Out with a whimper? Foetry.com
At one time Foetry.com was, depending on one’s perspective, a source of righteous indignation and deft muck-raking inspired by the corruption of poetry contests, a source of (at best) half-lies […]
June 28, 2007
“Other People’s Troubles” by Jason Sommer
Recently I had the opportunity to write a chapter, in a textbook, about poems’ use of the mid-course turn–the sort of turn usually associated with the sonnet. The focus of […]
June 27, 2007
Take Two
James Tait Black Memorial Prize Shortlist. The University of Edinburgh Department of English Literature announced its shortlist for the UK’s oldest literary award. The fiction shortlist includes: Half of a […]
June 26, 2007
Blogging KR Young Writers Workshops
One hat I wear around the Review is as an instructor in their Young Writers Workshops–blissful employment, one that hits my head and heart in the proper proportions. I’ll update […]
June 25, 2007
The Poetic Voice
I was recently visiting a friend who happens to be the grandaughter of John Crowe Ransom. She told the story of some unpublished poems had been discovered by scholars doing […]
June 23, 2007
A Taste for Scandal
Though the fevered coverage has died down, the JT LeRoy (aka Laura Albert) scandal staggers on. Albert, as you may recall, published a great deal of fiction as JT LeRoy, […]
June 23, 2007
Verse & Inverse: Transtr??mer’s Solution to the Sincerity Problem?
This post is the work of poet Jessica Johnson.–TM Tomas Transtr??mer has been frequently appreciated in the blogosphere since his collected poems, The Great Enigma, came out last year. See […]
June 22, 2007
On Jandek, Susan Howe
This post is the work of Sean Casey.–TM On June 8, the Texan music recluse Jandek performed at the new Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Jandek–the music and the […]
June 21, 2007
Assemblage
This is the second installment in Jonathan Crimmin’s reading of Ondaatje’s Divisadero. Find the first here. —TM On page 23 of Divisadero, Ondaatje describes his character Coop repairing a leak […]
June 20, 2007
On Not Writing
To speak of not writing, of being blocked, stalled, stumped, or abandoned by the muse–such is to court disaster for anyone who dreams of fluency, no less fecundity, of output. […]