tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-98912432012-01-29T09:43:16.140-08:00Content ProvidedC. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.comBlogger33101100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-59429264049456377502012-01-29T08:45:00.000-08:002012-01-29T09:43:16.151-08:00

"My mother had two brothers and a sister, who did a number of remarkable things.  Both brothers, James and Fred, worked playing minor league baseball for a while.  Both brothers published well regarded novels.  Her sister Jean married poet Donald Justice and published a volume of stories. In 1943 my mother married my father, Peter Taylor, who went on to write stories and plays and won the

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-37774708364500316442012-01-26T09:15:00.000-08:002012-01-26T09:15:50.095-08:00

"Does NPR, arguably the most far-reaching book-review outlet in America, favor women or men? I tallied the genders of novelists reviewed or interviewed between August 1 and November 31, 2011, on the NPR shows Fresh Air, All Things Considered,Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition, and the WBUR shows On Point and Here and Now. As it turns out, public media is worse than even

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-73934582008629718072012-01-26T06:37:00.000-08:002012-01-26T06:37:33.987-08:00

I can't remember now, but I don't think I shared this great news here: For Best American Poetry 2012, Mark Doty has chosen four poems from NER: • Amy Glynn Greacen, "Helianthus Annus (Sunflower)" • Reginald Dwayne Betts, “At the End of a Life, a Secret” • James Allen Hall, “One Train’s Survival Depends on the Other Derailed” • Natasha Trethewey, “Dr. Samuel Adolphus Cartwright on Dissecting

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-38592701377901016062012-01-25T10:24:00.000-08:002012-01-25T10:24:56.761-08:00

"Mark Twain’s insults could make a list in themselves, but he was particularly unfond of author Jane Austen. Twain claimed in a letter to a friend that he could read James Fennimore Cooper (another writer he famously loathed) "on salary," but not Austen. In another letter he said reading Pride and Prejudice made him wish he could "dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone." (

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-88274205520786746652012-01-25T06:43:00.000-08:002012-01-25T08:48:28.890-08:00

"He may not have been the greatest poet of the last century. But Larkin exemplifies the problems and successes of a particular British – perhaps we should even say English – poetics. Modernist or not, those giants TS Eliot and WH Auden – or Ezra Pound and Louis MacNeice – never gave themselves fully to a cultural Britishness. Their writing deploys a wider set of influences. By contrast, Larkin

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-4998509598844977312012-01-19T06:39:00.000-08:002012-01-19T06:39:56.175-08:00

"Tree Swenson, Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets, announced that Toi Derricotte, Jane Hirshfield, and Arthur Sze have been elected to the Board of Chancellors, the Academy's advisory board of distinguished poets." (via Academy press release) *********************** Eduardo wants help choosing a photo for his soon to be launched website. *********************** Do any

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-53041980532740513202012-01-18T06:49:00.000-08:002012-01-18T06:51:34.868-08:00

"For the last couple months, I've been trying to figure out what Klout is. When I first went to their website, it said I had a "Klout Score" of 36.  I had no idea what that meant, but I could see that it wasn't the lowest score nor the highest score.  But what was I being graded on? What Klout says on it's website is that it believe "Everyone has Influence" and "Our goal is to help you

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-29516553008454647882012-01-17T06:41:00.000-08:002012-01-17T06:51:19.128-08:00

"The Scottish poet John Burnside has won the most controversial TS Eliot poetry prize in years, for a collection described as "haunting", after two of the original shortlisted poets dropped out in protest over funding from the hedge fund Aurum." (via the Guardian) *********************** "Five lines into W. S. Di Piero's "Only in Things," he comes to the question poets often ask of

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-76143222468390806042012-01-16T08:24:00.000-08:002012-01-16T08:24:42.976-08:00

"Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy tells Channel 4 News "every poet must follow their conscience" as the withdrawal of two poets overshadows this year's TS Eliot Prize for poetry." (via channel 4) *********************** "An even more suggestive reading conflates the “you” and the implied “I,” casting the dialogue and its declarative statements, its drama, into a split, conflicted psychic

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-33007061844663282082012-01-12T06:20:00.000-08:002012-01-12T06:21:23.664-08:00

"The memory still haunts Samar Yazbek. Five times this year, Syrian security police hauled the 41-year-old novelist, one of the country's best-known writers, from her home in Damascus and into detention centers — not in order to arrest her, she says, but to show her what she would suffer if she continued speaking out against President Bashar Assad's regime." (via TIME) ***********************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-60813236338812576812012-01-11T06:38:00.000-08:002012-01-11T06:38:01.028-08:00

"Given the circumstances, this should be a golden age of liberalism. Yet the percentage of Americans who call themselves liberals is either flat or in decline. There are now two conservatives in this country for every liberal. Over the past 40 years, liberalism has been astonishingly incapable at expanding its market share.  The most important explanation is what you might call the Instrument

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-61040594140512036452012-01-10T09:10:00.000-08:002012-01-10T09:25:47.123-08:00

"Not tenderness in the eye but the brute need to see accurately: over the ridge on a trail deep in Tennessee, the great poet looked out and saw the vista that confederate soldiers saw as they rode over the edge rather than surrender." (My poem "The Vista" is featured today by the Academy of American Poets) *************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-2921533489021677912012-01-09T10:51:00.000-08:002012-01-09T11:21:35.324-08:00

Literary Arts announces the Finalists for the Oregon Book Awards: In poetry, they are: STAFFORD/HALL AWARD FOR POETRY Judge: Carl Phillips Carl Adamshick of Portland Curses and Wishes (Louisiana State University Press) Geri Doran of Eugene Sanderlings (Tupelo Press) Emily Kendal Frey of Portland The Grief Performance (Cleveland State University Press) Daniel Skach-Mills of Portland

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-69627929694878635922012-01-09T09:33:00.001-08:002012-01-09T09:33:55.577-08:00

 This is so dead on that it is scary... ***********************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-39731113073759957682012-01-08T10:59:00.000-08:002012-01-08T11:02:21.818-08:00

"My identity was shaped by my Latino background, and yet I struggled to identify with a lot of Latino literature being published," he said. "A lot of it came from these centers of Latino communities " the Puerto Rican community in New York or the Cuban-American community in Miami or the Mexican-American, the Chicano community, in the American Southwest. And so, a lot of the writing that came out

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-23188459592706408402012-01-07T09:21:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:19:57.432-08:00

"The Poetry Society of America is honored to announce that Marilyn Nelson is the 2012 recipient of the organization's highest award, the Frost Medal, presented annually for "distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry." Previous winners of this award include Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Moore, and Charles Simic, who was the 2011 recipient." (via the PSA) ******

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-12442189588646092952012-01-06T06:53:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:20:11.754-08:00

"As it happens, when what counts is the ethnic origins of authors and their message, poetry and literature is rendered banal. Such politically sanctioned art becomes instantaneously forgettable. Recently when I interviewed a group of English teenagers about the poets they had studied, I was told they were mainly exposed to what they called "random poets" whose names they could not remember. The

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-16776595078195500472012-01-05T15:50:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:20:28.327-08:00

"A drunk Colorado woman punched an iconic $30 million painting and rubbed her bare buttocks on the artwork before collapsing in a heap and urinating on herself at a museum, the Denver Post reported." (via NY Daily News) ************************* There are days when I feel like the woman described above and know that at any minute I am going to pee myself! ************************* "Why

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-1371764251436497332012-01-04T06:40:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:20:34.823-08:00

"We were not made in its image but from the beginning we believed in it not for the pure appeasement of hunger but for its availability it could command our devotion beyond question and without our consent[...]" (W.S. Merwin still knows how to write a surprisingly biting poem, via NYRB) ********************** "Ms Duffy, born in Gorbals, Glasgow, has won the Costa Poetry Award for The Bees

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-26666605481988378682012-01-03T06:33:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:20:43.263-08:00

"In the 19th century, the three line poem called a haiku entered the world of English poetry and was popularized by the imagist poet, Ezra Pound. It originated in Japanese poetry, and before being named haiku by Masaoka Shiki in the 19th century, it was called a renga. Renga was a collaborative poem, usually written by four or more people, and consisted of many alternating three-line and two-line

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-53318786610677381202012-01-02T08:21:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:20:50.717-08:00

"Eleanor Ross Taylor, 91, died Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, in Falls Church, Virginia.  She was born June 30, 1920, in Norwood, N.C., daughter of Fred Elbert Ross and Jennie Catherine Lilly Ross. She and her siblings - James Ross, Fred Ross and Jean Ross Justice - grew up in North Carolina and all became writers." (via Greensboro News-Record) *********************** "It's doubtful that

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-26043561146016999602012-01-01T09:34:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:20:56.725-08:00

This blog, Avoiding the Muse, turns 7 years old.  That fact is kind of shocking to me.  Also shocking is that people have visited this virtual space over 600,000 times since it was launched.  Thanks for stopping by.  I am still running a poll over in the sidebar, and I would appreciate your quick answer of the poll. ********************** "This year, blackbirds once again rained from the sky,

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-27469385800745170462011-12-31T08:50:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:21:03.399-08:00

You have published at least one book of poetry, and you are trying to place a new book.  Well, take a look at this: "The Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Award is an annual collaboration between Persea Books and The Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project. It is open to any American poet who has previously published at least one full-length book of poems. The winner receives an advance of $1,000.00,

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-12530982123436636772011-12-30T06:48:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:21:09.834-08:00

As we approach the end of this year, I specifically approach the blogoversary for this here blog.  It has evolved and changed many times since it started on January 1, 2005.  Yup, I started it as a response to a dare and as a New Year's resolution.  Difficult to believe six years of writing and editing this space is coming to an end.  Anyway, if you don't mind spending one minute extra here,

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-73996473891750722002011-12-29T06:41:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:21:16.040-08:00

"At present, poetry is a jumbled landscape, with no single, dominant style and few living figures whose importance is accepted in more than one or two of the art form's tiny fiefdoms. Although some might find this state of affairs discouraging, I think there's good reason to be optimistic — poetry often needs to undergo periods of confusion to achieve the clarity for which we'll later remember

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-61535164825453099382011-12-28T09:17:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:22:05.896-08:00

"Upon learning the news about Helen Frankenthaler’s death yesterday at the age of 83, I thought I would remind readers that her woodcut triptych, Madame Butterfly, served as the cover artwork for the Fall/Winter 2001-2002 issue (Volume III, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review. Since this issue of VPR was released only a few weeks after the 9/11 events, I believed a light and promising image was

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-15264267605370105152011-12-27T09:28:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:22:12.143-08:00

"Robert Bly's translation of Tranströmer's poems, “TheHalf-Finished Heaven,” is a good introduction to the Swedish poetswork from 1954 to 1996. The book of his entire collected poems “TheGreat Enigma,” translated by Robin Fulton, runs to only 262 pages.(In contrast, the collected poems of W. H. Auden take up 926pages.)" (Frank Thomas Pool, via LNJ) ************************* "In 1983, Stephen

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-32751117673827707422011-12-22T06:31:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:22:18.451-08:00

"I cannot let her get away with building her house of cards on falsehoods and innuendo," writes Dove in a letter to the New York Review of Books. "The amount of vitriol in Helen Vendler's review betrays an agenda beyond aesthetics. As a result, she not only loses her grasp on the facts, but her language, admired in the past for its theoretical elegance, snarls and grouses, sidles and roars as it

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-5099430718562924982011-12-21T06:16:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:22:24.524-08:00

Two poems from Geri Doran's beautiful book Sanderlings are up at Poetry Daily today. *********************** "This is not Chile. This is not Turkey. This is not Russia. We are not a country that imprisons or brutalizes its writers because of their writings; in fact, Americans are not really used to writers -- especially poets -- placing themselves at the forefront of political issues or

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-39580198417029505052011-12-18T09:36:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:22:31.791-08:00

"The landscapes of Mark Tredinnick's poems are usually Australian - the Blue Mountains, or the Southern Highlands, where he lives. But it is Walking Underwater, a poem he wrote in Portland, Oregon, that has won the inaugural Montreal International Poetry Prize, which at $50,000 is the world's richest prize for a single poem." (via the Sydney Morning Herald) ********************** "The

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-70928146625063287312011-12-16T09:52:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:22:39.843-08:00

"Commencing in Fall 2011, poet G.C. Waldrep will assume the editorship of West Branchafter an eleven-year tenure by Paula Closson Buck." (via West Branch) ************************* "The current paradigm is allowing money to become the arbiter of taste; those with the money to obtain the MFA and pay to submit both to magazines and to book contests will be deemed poets. Those without these

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-42489956486787441732011-12-15T10:54:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:22:50.853-08:00

"But here’s the actual problem. If the poetry world celebrated its female stars at the true level of their productivity and influence poetry would wind up being a largely female world and the men would leave. Poetry would not seem to be the job for them. I think that’s the fear. Losing daddy again! Plus women always need to support, I mean actively support male work in order to dispense with the

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-73566890636880046642011-12-15T06:24:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:22:57.949-08:00

While I was away on holiday, New England Review launched a new and improved website.  It is a pretty amazing remodel.  I can say that because I have nothing to do with the website.  But seriously, check it out.  There is a page for the current issue, where you can check out poems by Jordan Davis and Jennifer Grotz, a story by Scott Southwick, and even read an essay on Orwell's Hippopotamus.  And

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-24681348353106759092011-12-14T10:57:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:23:04.181-08:00

"Yesterday they were denticulate as dandelion greens, they locked together in spokes and fell so weightlessly  I thought of best friends holding hands. And then of mating hawks that soar into the air to link their claws and somersault down, separating just before they touch the ground." (Jennifer Grotz's "Snowflakes" is the poem of the day over at Poetry Daily) **************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-24493775365388588822011-12-13T05:52:00.000-08:002011-12-18T12:30:34.060-08:00

"I might have come from the high country, or maybe the low country, I don’t recall which. I might have come from the city, but what city in what country is beyond me." (Mark Strand, "Anywhere Could Be Somewhere," via Kenyon Review online) ********************** More later, I hope. ********************** Clue:  Early Bird **********************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-65289242707226875002011-12-12T06:35:00.000-08:002011-12-18T12:30:42.079-08:00

"What does it say about Vendler that out of the 175 poets in the Penguin Anthology she chose Gwendolyn Brooks and Melvin Tolson and Amiri Baraka to try to skewer me? Frankly, I felt a bit embarrassed for her -- and perplexed that someone who had once championed my work could expose herself with such a shallow paradigm." (Rita Dove in conversation with Jericho Brown, via the BAP blog) ********

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-5363820220360719122011-12-09T06:08:00.001-08:002011-12-18T12:30:50.131-08:00

"Terrance Hayes, a Carnegie Mellon University English professor who won the 2010 National Book Award for poetry, has been appointed as a panelist for President Barack Obama's new National Student Poets Program."  (via PPG) ********************** "Two finalists for the T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry have withdrawn, saying they objected to investment company Aurum Funds sponsoring the United

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-4162624508016459132011-12-08T06:28:00.001-08:002011-12-18T12:30:59.920-08:00

(Click on image above for larger image you can read) ************************* Oh Matt Groening, you really are amazing.  But what I want is for there to be one of these for Insensitive Poets. *************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-69444577441902502472011-12-07T08:19:00.001-08:002011-12-18T12:31:07.682-08:00

It is that time of the year again: "Twenty Poets Recommend New & Recent Titles" (via On the Seawall) ********************** My Facebook friends know this, but I thought I would share it here:  In a bookstore in Rome, I found a copy of Torn in the poetry section under "Americano."  To say I was surprised would be an understatement. ********************** William Logan reviews new books by

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-60312393887540723172011-12-05T13:11:00.001-08:002011-12-18T12:31:16.367-08:00

We are back in the U.S.A.  It has been weird to realize that we have been gone for so long.  This is a shot of Jacob and me on a winding path in Monte Carlo near the Royal Palace.  *********************** Has a lot happened since we left? *********************** Clue:  Apparate ***********************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-30349183816660908372011-11-11T06:19:00.001-08:002011-11-17T01:59:49.028-08:00

I just have to get through all of the work today and begin travels tomorrow.  I'll be away for a while.  If I can, I'll send postcards.

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-25962400754264499682011-11-09T06:31:00.000-08:002011-12-01T12:56:54.693-08:00

"The author of eight collections of poetry and one of the country’s leading advocates for the art, Pinsky will be honored tonight when he receives the Lifetime Achievement Award from the writers group PEN. The award, carrying a $1,000 prize, will be presented at PEN Center USA in Beverly Hills, Calif., one of the group’s two American centers and the award giver." (via BU Today) **************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-80460080397233899272011-11-07T08:12:00.000-08:002011-12-01T12:56:43.779-08:00

"A FEW weeks ago, a gaggle of young men gathered at a large, art-filled apartment on lower Fifth Avenue to discuss poetry. Stylishly disheveled and slimly tailored, they took stock of one another at the bar before settling into the parlor, which was tastefully furnished with books, Midcentury Modern chairs and a large painting by Jay Davis." (the NYT takes a look at the Wilde Boys)

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-24869182399100023232011-11-01T06:26:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:15:06.386-08:00

The waffle fries may be tasty as all get out, but don't effing eat Chik-fil-A!  Seriously, don't buy it.  So not kidding about this. ************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-70657432744765770152011-10-31T14:53:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:15:15.779-08:00

"The thrill of Young’s work (paradoxically) is that it takes place in slow motion. The collision is set in motion early in the poem, and inexorably, the impact approaches. The endings of his poems are devastating precisely because they have been coming for so long. He makes us wait, but always delivers. As he says of God: “He lifts me up/ to remind me of my foolish fear of heights” (Jason

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-30541925025081086202011-10-31T12:22:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:15:26.137-08:00

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN by John Keats 1. THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,   Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express   A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape         5   Of deities or mortals, or of both,     In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?   What men or gods are these? What maidens

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-25269877084279391252011-10-30T10:20:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:15:35.661-08:00

"No other American modernist poet—not Pound, not Wallace Stevens, not T.S. Eliot—was so worldly by the age of 18. No other American writer’s declaration that “Europe is nothing to us” is so self-dramatizing. As Pound understood, Williams nurtured a first-generation American’s obsession with the idea of an indigenously American art; and in contrast to Eliot, whose family had lived in

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-4981640602219359762011-10-29T10:34:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:15:46.827-08:00

"A "disgraceful" mistake over the name of a famous English poet has upset a university lecturer in Devon." (via the BBC) ************************ The draft of poem #4 arrived yesterday.  I had been carrying around a line for a week or two and yesterday, while driving home from work, another line came.  Within an hour of getting home, I had 25 lines down.  It is still kind of a mess, but it

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-42879258852340336382011-10-27T09:16:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:15:56.118-08:00

"A student at Union-Scioto High School in Chillicothe, Ohio was brutally beaten this week by another student for being gay. Class members watched as the bully waited for the student to arrive in the classroom, grabbed him, pushed him to the ground and punched him in the face several times. Another student recorded the assault on his cell phone. The video was posted to Facebook." (via

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-65408710639669424192011-10-26T06:29:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:16:04.057-08:00

Just in case you didn't hear the news, the Whiting Foundation awarded its Writers' Awards last night.  Our very own Eduardo C. Corral was among that prestigious list.  Guess who is buying the drinks for folks at AWP this year! (via the Whiting Foundation) ********************** Coverage also from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. ********************** "Riot police in

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-17465754719312972602011-10-25T09:59:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:16:12.642-08:00

"This is a new opportunity for emerging NYC poets and we hope to continue the program. Please consider submitting your first or second poetry collection to us through our new "It's No Contest" Program." (via FWB blog) ************************ So, if you live in NYC (the five boroughs) and you have a first or second book ms., what are you waiting for? ************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-41526856528238440132011-10-23T07:41:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:16:23.452-08:00

"But Generation X is tired of your sense of entitlement. Generation X also graduated during a recession. It had even shittier jobs, and actually had to pay for its own music. (At least, when music mattered most to it.) Generation X is used to being fucked over. It lost its meager savings in the dot-com bust. Then came George Bush, and 9/11, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Generation X

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-44705910977353450522011-10-21T06:20:00.000-07:002011-11-11T06:16:32.122-08:00

The unmistakable poems of Rick Barot... (via Diode) ********************** "Supporters of the 2008 ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage in California lost their effort Thursday to block their past and future campaign finance records from public view because of alleged harassment of their donors. A federal judge in Sacramento ruled against ProtectMarriage.com and the National

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-871877054647484562011-10-20T10:53:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:31:41.483-07:00

I know I am a bad correspondent.  I have so many excuses to offer why it has taken me almost two months to reply to your letter.  But I won't trouble your patience with them.  The world is filled with excuses, and it makes me irritable and irritated sometimes.  So, I won't add any excuses.  I will simply beg your forgiveness. I finished reading the book you recommended.  I can see why you are

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-41819280816020033432011-10-20T06:41:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:31:53.583-07:00

Victor LaValle, one of the National Book Award judges this year in fiction, responds to Laura Miller: "I read Laura Miller’s recent lambasting of our choices with a great deal of joy. Joy mostly because I love a good fight, and because one of the things missing most from the overly polite—some might say cowardly—world of contemporary literature is a willingness to talk a little smack in defense

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-42136742120329275612011-10-19T06:36:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:32:02.273-07:00

"Julian Barnes finally won the literary prize that has eluded him on three previous occasions when he was tonight presented with the Man Booker prize for his short novel, The Sense of an Ending. His victory came after one of the most bitter and vituperative run-ups to the prize in living memory - not among the shortlisted writers, but from dismayed and bemused commentators who accused judges of

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-20609313693451807892011-10-18T06:22:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:32:12.454-07:00

In World War II, the Germans would bomb London and at times blow up entire blocks.  Because curiosity is such that people cannot help look at destruction, people would come to see a destroyed block.  Later, thanks to dark humor, when people saw a line of people waiting for something, they began joking that there must have been a block-buster, referring to the German bombs.  Blockbuster has

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-26281341557859461932011-10-17T05:49:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:32:20.268-07:00

"If you set aside the five or so hours it took to download Apple's iOS 5 this weekend, you were richly rewarded with a suite of new functions for your favorite brain-cancer-hastening communications device. And none were niftier than "Find My Friends" — appointed in the finest iNaugahyde, it's an app that allows you to plot your friends on a map as if they were enemy ships on a blinking radar

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-9878101456615735162011-10-16T08:22:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:32:30.651-07:00

For all of you Younger Poets out there, The Yale Younger Poets Prize has, once again, changed the dates of submissions: "Submissions for the 2012 Competition must be postmarked no earlier than October 1, 2011 and no later than November 15, 2011. See Guidelines for Submission below for precise information regarding your entry." (via the YUP website, hat nod to Eduardo via FB) ***************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-1334668528942650582011-10-14T06:31:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:32:39.782-07:00

"The National Book Award finalists, which were announced yesterday, include five authors in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and six authors in young people’s literature. Lady finalists outnumber or equal men in every category except poetry." (via Autostraddle) ********************** "The sad thing about Laura Miller’s slapdash effort to take down this year’s slate of National Book

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-77168798992246549762011-10-09T08:43:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:32:49.039-07:00

"The MacArthur Awards were recently announced, and one of the winners this year was the poet and translator A.E. Stallings. She grew up in Georgia, attended the University of Georgia and then Oxford. She studied classical languages and literature -- training that has greatly informed her work as a poet. She's lived in Athens, Greece for the last 12 years." (Jeffrey Brown interviews A.E.

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-28247587389441879072011-10-06T06:21:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:32:59.202-07:00

"Sweden's most famous living poet, Tomas Transtromer, won the Nobel prize for literature on Thursday, the first time in more than 30 years the award has gone to a native of the Nordic country." (via Reuters)  ********************** Steve Jobs passed away yesterday.  I wrote my first college paper on a Mac.  My first computer was that box-shaped Mac that seemed so fricking cool to me.

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-6724588274810376642011-10-05T06:30:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:33:10.647-07:00

"One of the bestselling literary novels of last year, Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, self-consciously models itself on Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and toddles realistically along like modernism never happened. It's as if a contemporary composer were to rescore the Eroica, making the melodies more saccharine and the harmonies more schmaltzy, then premiere it at the last night of the Proms to

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-51735043210133324492011-10-04T15:15:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:33:21.031-07:00

Do you have a question you are just dying to ask Carl Phillips?  Well, go ahead.  Now is your chance. ************************* Seriously.  Go ahead.  Ask him.  You know you want to....  I know I have a few questions to ask. *************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-64685461218737426342011-10-04T06:31:00.000-07:002011-10-26T06:33:39.298-07:00

"This two-year post-graduate residential fellowship at Kenyon College offers qualified individuals time to develop as writers, teachers, and editors. Fellows will receive a $32,500 stipend, plus health benefits. Fellows are expected to: Undertake a significant writing project and attend regular individual meetings with faculty mentors. Teach one semester-long class per year in the English

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-43176130448324799212011-10-03T06:00:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:44:27.078-07:00

"Syrian poet Adonis is the front-runner for the Nobel Prize in literature. That's according to Ladbrokes, the British wagering house, which takes odds on possible Nobel literature laureates every year.  The Nobel Prize in literature is expected to be announced in early October, but that's about all the general public knows about the prize." (via the LAT) ********************** "The

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-58781460307683388942011-10-02T11:10:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:44:38.012-07:00

As some of you may have noticed, I have not been able to post much this past week.  I was incredibly sick.  But I am 90% better now, so here I am again. ********************** Tomas Q. Morin's poem from NER is featured today at Poetry Daily. ********************** "Often in the shadow of novels, poetic anthologies are rarely appreciated outside their small circles of interest. However

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-73151524898998100142011-09-26T06:19:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:44:51.762-07:00

"Neither fish nor fowl, neither literature nor diatribe, it does not merit the treatment that follows, neither mine nor of anyone else. But it does get treated because Saramago caused a stir world-wide, caused by the Swedish Academy who jump-frogged over the literary establishment in Portugal at the time, and awarded a Nobel Prize to a communist, humbly-born man without a given last name.

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-11521094605211198502011-09-24T08:11:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:45:01.108-07:00

 "I was curious to see which literary figures would be included in the series of stamps dedicated to poets that will be issued by the U.S. Post Office in 2012. Above are images of the stamps that have been announced (click image to enlarge). The 10 poets featured: Joseph Brodsky (1940 - 1996); Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 - 2000); William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963); Robert Hayden (1913 -

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-71088898149487142222011-09-23T13:10:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:45:10.964-07:00

"Poet John Ashbery and bookseller Mitchell Kaplan will receive honorary National Book Awards." (via the WP) ********************** Swamped, to say the least... ********************** Before you know it, the Whiting Foundation will be naming its new list of award winners.  Always some surprises in that list... ********************** Clue:  Cashews ********************** 

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-27124297452493406162011-09-21T15:09:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:45:19.214-07:00

"If Heather McHugh, David O’Meara and Fiona Sampson find themselves being treated especially nice by their peers over the next nine months, here’s why: the three poets will serve on the jury of the 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize, it was announced on Wednesday." (via the National Post) ************************* "The highest median earnings went to petroleum engineers, at $120,000. By comparison,

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-27141355053802191862011-09-20T06:01:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:45:34.282-07:00

"Decatur native A.E. Stallings says her husband ribs her as a "genius" when the poet misplaces her cell phone or makes some other move that proves her mind is elsewhere. Well, as of Tuesday, let the kidding really begin. Stallings, a University of Georgia graduate who has lived in Athens, Greece, for more than a decade, has been named one of 22 recipients of a 2011 MacArthur "genius" award." (

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-51512134920157724602011-09-16T06:50:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:45:50.699-07:00

"Perhaps now is a good time to remind everyone that a graduate degree in creative writing means, sadly, nothing. It won't give you easily marketable skills. It will take years away from specializing in something more lucrative, perhaps in something even more enjoyable. It doesn't assure that you will get a teaching job in anything anywhere ever, nor that you will be published. It gives you time

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-87768948446749564502011-09-15T09:11:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:09:58.026-07:00

"By the time T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis on September 26, 1888, he had been preceded in this world by a brother and four sisters, the eldest of whom was nineteen years his senior. Inevitably, great care was lavished on the youngest Eliot; he had five mothers. Or perhaps six. Next door to the Eliot house on Locust Street lived Abigail Adams Eliot, Eliot’s grandmother, who had grown up in

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-58779194581264502412011-09-13T09:44:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:10:18.481-07:00

"But that doesn’t get at the heart of the problem of ranking M.F.A. programs: it’s not black and white, and when you think about it, programs like these aren’t really that rankable. What if your favorite writer teaches at a program at the bottom of the list? What qualifies as a successful graduate: a creative-writing teacher, a best-selling novelist, or someone who has honed his or her

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-66366199277738823662011-09-12T15:24:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:10:57.570-07:00

"New York, September 12—Yusef Komunyakaa has been selected as the recipient of the 2011 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. The $100,000 prize recognizes outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. Joan Larkin has been selected as the recipient of the 2011 Academy Fellowship. The Fellowship is awarded annually to a poet for distinguished poetic achievement and

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-11963709627829258492011-09-11T08:14:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:11:19.812-07:00

This day has come around again.  It always surprises me.  And still, it fills me with immense sadness.  No parade, no speeches, nothing could make me feel better about this day.  I remember it as if it were yesterday.  And I remember it inside my frame, not just in my mind.  I still feel the same.  Today is the the anniversary of losing someone I cared deeply about and the anniversary of losing

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-21307657395193179032011-09-08T06:36:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:11:28.730-07:00

"Britain’s first female Poet Laureate, who is second only to Shakespeare as the subject of choice for undergraduates studying English, said poetry was the “original” form of text messaging.  Her views are in stark contrast to other education experts who have lamented how modern language is being killed off by the so-called “Facebook generation”." (via the Telegraph) ***************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-83159923876237012542011-09-05T14:48:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:11:38.779-07:00

"This is the reality of poetry publishing. There are certainly presses that sell more copies. A poetry title reviewed in The New York Times can sell 2-4k copies, it is true. But small, independent presses, those small shops, usually run by one or a few people, rarely see those kinds of sales. University presses, for the most part, don't see those kinds of numbers for poetry. I attended a

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-8125075746403207832011-09-05T12:51:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:11:45.939-07:00

BlazeVOX will not, after all, be closing its doors.  Here is a new statement from its Editor: "Thank you for your kind support. It is a wonderful thing that you stand up for poetry in such fine ways. I have learned from this discussion and will strive to be ever more effectively transparent about publication arrangements. I want make a statement after the fact. BlazeVOX is not closing its doors

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-87602878375190396142011-09-05T08:35:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:12:02.710-07:00

It was at this time, in 1995, while in my third year of medical school that I began editing poetry for New England Review.  I have a difficult time believing I have been doing this now for 16 years.  But here, as I start year number 17, it occurs to me how much has changed in the past 16 years.  It is almost too much to post here.  In my personal life and in the world around me, 1995 and 2011 are

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-19591107617818688832011-09-02T13:52:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:12:14.539-07:00

John Gallaher is conducting market research on MFA Programs. *********************************** $1,197,000,000,000. Yup. Can you guess what this figure represents? *********************************** Jacob and I will be at the Yard tonight cheering on Los Gigantes. *********************************** I do not like the new Google interface for Blogger. Not a bit. ***************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-50201139257529716582011-09-01T09:02:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:12:20.993-07:00

"The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine are pleased to announce the five recipients of 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowships: Olivia Clare, T. Zachary Cotler, Farnoosh Fathi, Alison Seay, and Marcus Wicker. Among the largest awards offered to aspiring poets in the United States, the $15,000 scholarship prize is intended to encourage the further study and writing of poetry. The editors of Poetry

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-47553701714301910812011-08-31T15:08:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:12:28.322-07:00

"In a decade of frenzied tax-cutting for the rich, the Republican Party just happened to lower tax rates for the poor, as well. Now several of the party’s most prominent presidential candidates and lawmakers want to correct that oversight and raise taxes on the poor and the working class, while protecting the rich, of course." (A NYT Editorial) ****************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-87771999297801714912011-08-31T13:13:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:12:35.053-07:00

"C. Dale Young's fine poetry has been published in such well-respected journals, such as Ploughshares, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, and The Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. He teaches at the Warren Wilson low-residency MFA program in creative wwriting and is poetry editor for The New England Review. And somehow, in his spare time, he works full time as a doctor. Which is why he

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-20222544019108544952011-08-30T18:05:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:12:42.686-07:00

"American writers eventually come face to face with the barnacle-encrusted myths that we use to invent ourselves: Manifest Destiny, the Greatest Generation — and let’s not forget Honest Abe and plucky little Betsy Ross stitching together the first Stars and Stripes. Each poet in these collections wrestles with our American myths: Kathleen Ossip waves her red-white-and-blue cape at the mad bull of

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-80801463565732157252011-08-30T06:23:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:12:49.345-07:00

"It's entirely possible, in fact, that you too -- Press-Citizen reader -- may have written a poem by Dean Young. If so, you'll know because you'll start hearing "time's winged whatchamacallit" while you vacuum. You'll know because you'll bemoan how you "don't / have that house anymore across from the graveyard / and its black angel." You'll know because you'll try to roll the everyday image of

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-66491302275883880252011-08-29T18:45:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:12:56.531-07:00

"* LGBT authors will be recognized with three awards marking stages of a writer’s career: the Betty Berzon Debut Fiction Award (to one gay man and one lesbian), the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize (to one male-identified and one female-identified author), and the Pioneer Award (to one male-identified and one female-identified individual or group) * Awards for the remaining

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-68608638254788701852011-08-28T10:48:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:13:03.664-07:00

"Syrian poet Adonis is the recipient of this year's Goethe Prize for "transposing Europe's modern achievements into the Arab world," the jury said." (via DW) **************************** "It's as if black artists are only able to tell autobiographical horror stories and don't have an imagination. There was an idea I wouldn't have been able to conceive of [the narrator] Precious's life

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-57045371286251429532011-08-27T10:31:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:13:18.100-07:00

"He has to his name two Pulitzer Prizes and more than 30 books of poetry and prose, and a hand-planted forest at home of rare and endangered palms. The Merwin Conservancy is dedicated to keeping his works green -- the ones he created with words, and the natural ones that exist before and beyond them." (Patt Morrison interviews W.S. Merwin, via the LAT) **************************** "You

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-28432877286130618812011-08-25T15:28:00.001-07:002011-09-21T15:13:24.731-07:00

Today in a press conference, God was asked why the crack in the Washington Monument was a sign from Him. He responded: "There are 80,000 humanoids in the universe and countless species and forms of life. Why are humans in the U.S. so frickin' self-involved as to think a crack in a monument is a memo from me!" When a reporter seemed shocked, God said: "Whatever..." *****************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-32255329686930292682011-08-25T11:30:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:13:36.262-07:00

"Anthony Bourdain, the part-time chef and full-time celebrity, has a tongue on him. It’s the sharpest knife in his set. He has used it to carve up vegans, whom he called the “Hezbollah-like splinter faction” of vegetarians, and the culinary moralist Alice Waters, whose rigidity is “very Khmer Rouge.” The latest to be slashed: Paula Deen. For the uninitiated, she’s the deep-fried doyenne of a

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-3768731262558377732011-08-25T10:45:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:13:44.322-07:00

"The Academy of American Poets announced today that C.D. Wright's One With Others (Copper Canyon Press) was chosen by poets Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, D.A. Powell, and Martha Ronk to receive the 2011 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, which awards $25,000 to the most outstanding book of poetry published in the previous year." (via the Academy Website) ****************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-82811544951276138952011-08-24T15:22:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:13:53.306-07:00

"Lindsborg, Kansas's tiny Bethany College—a Lutheran school, home of the Fighting Swedes—has suspended its entire golf team for three tournaments as a punishment for taking the above naked photo together. You can't see any dong in the shot, but it's there, under the golfing gear." (via Deadspin) **************************** Um, doesn't that totally look like one of the photos we use

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-15068874079959170972011-08-23T13:00:00.001-07:002011-09-21T15:14:00.245-07:00

We hacked a high-ranking AWP official's cell phone and found a copy of the prestigious literary conference's 2012 schedule. Events include: Pregret: Living a Life Ripe for Memoir, Working with Child Editors, and a reading from MFA candidates at Oral Roberts University. 9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Third Floor Coat Room Minimum Wage: A Privilege, Not a Right. Learn the basics of the unpaid internship

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-11930025164218167762011-08-23T09:32:00.000-07:002011-09-21T15:14:20.259-07:00

"Samuel Menashe, died peacefully in his sleep on the night of August 22, 2011. Sam was a longtime friend to so many of us, who will miss the phone calls, faxes, and handwritten letters though which he liked to share his latest poems." (Don Share, via the Poetry Foundation) ****************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-35190542455637100612011-08-22T14:32:00.000-07:002011-08-27T10:57:29.787-07:00

"New York, August 22—The Academy of American Poets announced today that Anna Moschovakis's collection You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake (Coffee House Press, 2011) was chosen by poets Juliana Spahr, Brian Teare, and Mónica de la Torre to receive the 2011 James Laughlin Award, which presents $5,000 for the most outstanding second book by an American poet in the previous year." (via the

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-43232030433397718242011-08-22T06:32:00.000-07:002011-08-27T10:57:38.348-07:00

"Yet her belief that writer could stand on its own as a title, with little need for the preface of lesbian, alcoholic, manic depressive, orphaned or woman is unquestioned, even though these character traits are often pinned to Bishop and credited with having affected her output, with little consideration to her reticence to talk about her personal life. Critics still see the poet inside the poem,

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-75831661017019150302011-08-19T06:59:00.000-07:002011-08-27T10:57:47.411-07:00

Traci Brimhall's beautiful poem "Via Dolorosa" is featured today at Poetry Daily. It is from her new book Rookery, and it originally appeared in New England Review: We have been telling the story wrong all along, how a king took Philomela's tongue after he had taken her body, and how the gods turned her into a nightingale [...] ****************************

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9891243.post-86978297043171420012011-08-17T10:05:00.000-07:002011-08-27T10:57:56.392-07:00

"While contemporary American poetry has always been pretty comfortable taking on issues like race and gender, it's not always been the best at articulating the nuances of social and economic class. No one is better at this than Levine. His characters are never maudlin. They might be struggling, but they are never shameless, never what I call "Oliver-poor." On the contrary, they almost always

C. Dalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17270640200393742125noreply@blogger.com4