POETRY
Kay Ryan: The Best of It
Aneesa Davenport
03.02.10
In July, Kay Ryan was appointed the 16th U.S. Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress. It's a sudden change for a poet, whose reclusiveness has earned her comparisons to Emily Dickinson. For the last 33 years, Ryan has quietly taught remedial English for as an adjunct professor at a California community college instead of accepting an tenure track position leading writing workshops. Although critics claim that her poems haven't changed much over the years, writer Aneesa Davenport explains that "They are like hard little diamonds, each brilliant but cut only slightly differently."
"Somewhere in this Book I Broke" -- a review of Mean Free Path by Ben Lerner
Jeff T. Johnson
02.09.10
"If you have to buy a ticket, it's modern. If you are already inside and you have to pay to get out of it, it's more modern," writes Ben Lerner in his book Angle of Yaw, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award. He has followed it with his latest collection Mean Free Path. Taken from physics, its title refers to the average distance traveled by an electron between two successive collisions with other moving particles, an idea which -- along with the Doppler effect -- Lerner uses to explore 21st century distraction, the military industrial complex and love. Jeff Johnson reviews this ambitious new work.
Some Kind of Cheese Orgy by Linh Dinh
Kaya Oakes
01.30.10
Vietnamese-American author Linh Dinh's short story "Stewart Crenshaw" has to be among the oddest, most Borgesian slave narratives ever written. A pre-Emancipation southern white man commands his slaves to be his master. The community is an uproar over this arrangement and the slaves object to their circumstances but Crenshaw asserts that it is his right. The story revolves around the question of whether this southern gentleman is a heroic John Brown figure or the ultimate poseur until the narrative undoes itself in a final brilliant metafictional move. Kaya Oakes, author of Slanted Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, reviews the most recent collection of Dinh's poetry. Fans of his work will be glad to know that after several delays, Dinh's novel Love Like Hate will be published by Seven Stories in May.
We Can Only Expand the Boundaries When We're Up Against the Ropes: Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Brandon Scott Gorrell
Kaya Oakes
09.24.09
Kaya Oakes reviews the work of two very different young poets: one who writes in the voices of historical figures, including Amelia Earhart's mechanic and boxer Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, the other working in the genre of "Gmail Confessionalism." Through these collections, Oakes traces the influence of parallel trends: the rapid expansion of MFA programs and the growth of digital publishing, showing us two very different points in the vast territory of contemporary American poetry.
Lucifer Poetics: The State of NC part 2
Brian Howe
12.09.08
Thom Donovan's survey of poetry communities continues... A few months back, poet Brian Howe introduced to us a selection of fellow poets that hail from, reside in or are tied to North Carolina in one way or another. Now we get to hear them in their own words. Included here are Chris Vitiello, David Need, Dianne Timblin, Joseph Donahue, kathryn l. pringle, Ken Rumble, Magdalena Zurawski, Patrick Herron, Rodrigo Garcia Lopes, Tanya Olson, Tessa Joseph Nicholas, and Tony Tost. Brian Howe returns to write the intro for this hell of a collection from the Lucifer Poetics group. Take your time with it and enjoy.
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The State of N.C. ...Poetry (pt. 1)
Brian Howe
07.25.08
The legendary Black Mountain College produced such avant-garde poets as Robert Creely, Denise Levertov and Paul Blackburn in under a quarter of a centurty. Now what remains of the BMC is a small museum and arts center. North Carolina poetry is not in trouble, however; here, Brian Howe celebrates three fellow modern North Carolina poets: Chris Vitiello, Tony Tost and Ken Rumble. The poetic spirit of this southern state lives on.
PhillySound Poets
Thom Donovan
06.21.08
Since 2003, CAConrad and a band of Philly poets have coedited the blog, PhillySound. As the first installment in a series devoted exclusively to poetry communities and small press cultures, Conrad gathers eleven poets involved with PhillySound. Read selections of poems online from some of the most vital poets currently working in the city of brotherly love. The Fanzine poetry series is hosted by Thom Donovan.
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