Here lives poetry that resembles a sticky dance floor. Poetry that is at once terraformed music and primal shout and wet kiss and sweaty palm. The "American" in Bettering American Poetry is a kind of ghoulish placeholder for whichever more rebellious, more enlivening world comes next.
-Billy-Ray Belcourt
“UNDERSTANDING THE POEM” “The problem flashes face forward when I want to ask the poet what she meant when she wrote poetry and she is no longer with us.” ~~~~~ DISCOVER “STOP & FRISK” @ CONNOTATION PRESS ~~~~~
While people like Cate Marvin, Susan Schultz, & Craig Santos Perez have queried similarly in the past, speculating on a variety of causes for rejection, proposal applicants are still left wondering at the end of the process each year, where we went wrong. Did bias play a role? Are the panelists and I not noteworthy…
— “VERSE BROADENS THE MIND, SCIENTISTS FIND“ — “The Contiguous Image: Mapping Metaphor in Haiku” by Matthew M. Carriello (Thank you, Denise Hill) — “Should MIT Teach Poetry?” by John Lundberg — “This Is Your Brain on Metaphors” by Robert Sapolsky — “Present and Tense: Fiction vs. Poetry in Recovery“ — “CLOSE CALLS WITH NONSENSE: — HOW TO…
What Would Woolf and Whitman Do? (A Practical Primer) “This is the beauty of the new media. There is no way to control it.” –Srdja Popovic What would Woolf, Whitman, Stein, Eliot, Pound, and countless other self-published writers do in the face of the monolithic publishing industry today? Which new and contemporary writers should consider…
Read more Your Own Revolution: Poetry, Publishing & the Internet
“This isn’t a movie we can turn off and walk away from…” Ana Bozicevic and I just drove across the Cuyahoga River in Ohio two days ago, thinking about the water, the oil and this song. More fitting now than ever. Press play, sit back, take it in. Time to own this and do…
“Best of 2009″ and “Historical Count” BEST OF 2009 Amazon – Top 100 Editors’ Picks 2009 77 Men 23 Women ~~~ The American Book Awards / Before Columbus Foundation 2009 5 Men 5 Women Lifetime Achievement Award – 1 Man ~~~ Christian Science Monitor — Best books of 2009: Fiction 5 Men 7 Women Christian Science…
ABSOLUTE DISPARITY. For the WILLA debut, I thought I’d kick things off with two views. The “Best of 2009” looks at the gender distribution of several major book awards and prominent “best of” lists. I took my second cue from Ursula K Le Guin’s 1999 talk, “Award and Gender,” in which she tallied up the…
Watch the Kathleen Hanna clip. Read the manifesto. I can’t help it. I keep saying I won’t write this post. It’s not worth it, I’ll appear rude, my knowledge is limited, etc. But I’ve decided to put it out there, after a cursory read and setting the book aside in annoyance. The Gurlesque anthology, GURLESQUE:…
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 7:00PM-10:00PM Dusie Pussipo Stonecoast Femiganza Location: at Packing House Center for the Arts, 835 E. 50th Ave. Denver, CO 80216 Cost: FREE! Everybody welcome! Website: http://controlgroupproductions.org/ Featuring: Bronwen Tate, Ann Bogle, Jennifer Karmin, Marthe Reed, Annie Finch, Amy King, Cara Benson, Mackenzie Carignan, Danielle Pafunda, Deborah Poe, Ana Bozicevic, Teresa Carmody,…
The “I Like Amy King A Lot” Interview FIND OUT: * You’re very involved in participating in the poetry community. What motivates you to be involved with so many projects? What do you get from all your projects? * What is your best coping mechanism for the AWP experience? Do you enjoy participating in the…
David Green, NYC Subway Poet Initial Query So I commissioned a female artist not long ago to make some dolls of my partner-in-crime, Ana, and myself. I was thrilled when they arrived. But their arrival got me to thinking, especially in relation to the film, “Who Does She Think She Is?” — How many of…
THOSE BADASS ♀ ARE AT IT AGAIN Judith Butler: As a Jew, I was taught it was ethically imperative to speak up ~~ “I call myself a feminist.”–Dalai Lama ~~ Film explores the life of China’s first feminist ~~ Sarkozy’s depiction of pregnant, ‘virgin’ Marianne sparks feminist … ~~ Forty years of women’s liberation ~~ The Revolution Won’t…
Read more “…damned mob of scribbling women” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Riggio Forum: Women in Letters and Literary Arts Monday, March 1, 2010 @ 6:30 p.m. Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street — Room 510 New York, NY WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts) presents readings along with a panel discussion on the state of women’s literature today. Participants, all of whom…
WHETTING EXCERPTS: …In queer poetry, desire blooms, and yes, I may just marry my dog— …Beyond that debate, we remain, in all our queerness, anomalies writing aloud the unimagined territories that language spearheads and explores. They may fear adventure in my world, but I inhabit theirs in multiple ways—and am them. …Queer poets especially locate…
Ever hear of Diane Savino? You will. Currently our senator from Staten Island, she recently made the nation’s radar with her speech on the sanctity of marriage, well worth viewing here: “Diane Savino has dedicated her entire professional career towards improving the lives of working families. She began her career in public service as a…
Amy King kicks it out each month (fingers crossed!) @ Mike’s Writing Newsletter (click here & scroll waaay down for November’s tip) ~~~~~~~ WOMPO members have created an online conference, “First Annual Festival of Women’s Poetry!” Click here for my book’s page or here for my author page. But please note: I am but one…
BLACKS LOVE WHITES? AMERICAN CITIZENS LOVE IMMIGRANTS? WHITES LOVE PAKISTANIS? WOMEN LOVE WOMEN? BLACKS LOVE LATINAS? WHITES LOVE BLACKS? OLD LOVES YOUNG? FAMOUS LOVES UNKNOWN? MAN LOVES MAN? HAPPY LOVES DEPRESSIVE? ~~~~~ CIVIL RIGHTS DON’T BELONG TO EVERYONE! JOIN ME IN APPLAUDING PROP 8! [THIS POST IS SARCASTIC FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON’T “GET…
Collage by Susana Gardner The President is more than the present moment, the President personifies Any Asshole as we prefer him the King of our Night Repeated from ‘first moment when I saw him’ he is continuuity smoothing time, so I won’t break up into Poem continued @ “Intercapillary Space” essays and poems, notes and…
ABOUT THIS DEMOCRATIC VOTING SYSTEM, BUT YOU KNOW, GIVE IT A GO? TELL SOME BLOKES? STUDENTS? ‘RENTS? EXES? SOMEBODY? HERE ARE SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE TO MOCK YOU: IF IT’S GOING TO BE A CLOSE ELECTION, WELL, YOU ONLY HAVE A COUPLE DAYS LEFT TO REGISTER. I GUESS. ~~~~~~~~ Just a few link updates too. And…
Part 1 of 3 Stay tuned for the *complete* audio of the Race and Poetry panel @ PennSound [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/King.html or on a “bigger” page, waiting to hear]. In the meantime, *incomplete* video @ Blip.TV [http://amyking.blip.tv/ – better quality & only 3 long parts] or YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/user/amyhappens] with 7 shorter videos. The Wilders have also put…
SELF AWARENESS? I found this elephant — Hong — on G.I.’s blog, “Love Settlement“. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ They just wanted to be like everyone else, and unfortunately they were: normal guys who happened to have sex with other normal guys. For me, to be gay was an elective affinity, a chosen destiny. For most of them, it…
JKR’s Commencement speech at Harvard (Part 1 of 2) J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo. I’ve seen some of the Harry Potter films, but was never blown away by him or his creator’s story of rags-to-fame. But this speech, well. Lately, I’ve had some of my students write journal entries…
[YOUTUBE=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpteWcREVVA] NOT JUST FOR THE LADIES, THINKING GUYS DIG IT TOO! One of the few kick-ass feminist publications produced by and for a younger generation, here’s their mission: Mission We seek to be a fresh, revitalizing voice for feminism, one that welcomes complex arguments, showcases witty and whip-smart critiques of popular culture, and refuses to…
The first ‘coming out’ book I ever read was Audre Lorde’s ZAMI: A New Spelling of My Name, billed as a “Biomythography,” a new genre created by Lorde. I read this book, checked out from a library, long before I ever encountered the more often rotated among young lesbians Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown.…
Next month, from Thurs. Sept. 18-Sun. Sept. 21, we’ll be putting on the second annual Welcome to Boog City poetry and music festival. It will feature performances from 49 poets, 13 musical acts, and one theater company over the four days. Among the highlights are: —a night devoted to Durham, N.C. small press minor/american; —a…
Read more SUN, SEPT. 21st @ 3:00 p.m.- Race and Poetry: Integrating the Experimental
