Outsiders, Insiders, and Ghosts

"According to this way of thinking, the art form demands such devotion to one’s individuality that every poet, no matter how lowly, is a kind of outsider — a Cheese Who Stands Alone. This perception frequently finds its way into depictions of poets in popular culture; it also emerges in the vehemence with which poets themselves regularly declare their opposition to labels, categories, schools, allegiances, booster clubs, car pools, intramural softball teams and so on. Yet when everyone is busy standing apart, how is it possible to stand out? What does real independence look like? Possibly something like the work of Thom Gunn..."

(David Orr in the NYT)


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“I’m kind of a nut about clipping articles, a bit of a magpie,” she told me the other day. “Science Times, as well as current events in general, catch my eye.” She added, “I count myself lucky to have such an amazing supply of extraordinary material — every Tuesday!”

(NYT has an article on Kimiko Hahn and her new book)


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Back to Clinic today. Excited to get back to work. The first day back is usually a little crazy, but that is okay.


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"Facebook investor Digital Sky Technologies on Tuesday offered to buy up to $100 million worth of employees' common stock in a deal that values the top U.S. social network at $6.5 billion."

(from the SF Chronicle)


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"It's us giving awards to us. It's us picking poems by us. It's us publishing each other. I want my peers to like my work, but more importantly, I want others beyond poetry to read poetry. I wonder if this, though, is because we are all narcissistic and we really just want to be famous, which is another way of being known, not anonymous?"

(Victoria Chang responds to the Newsweek article that finds the Poetry Readership shrinking)


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Clue: Bewildering


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