Big Things

Big things are in the works. Big big things. All we can say is that next week at this time much will be different, and better. It’s exciting, mind-blowing, and nerve-wracking, all at the same time. If we compared these big things to the writing life, it would be akin to having a novel published, a novel that’s taken many years to write, one that’s required a strong sense of personal commitment and just a little bit of good luck.  Soon, the results of all this work and luck will be revealed to the world. Yikes, big things indeed! At any rate, to be a little less cryptic, here’s today’s roundup of literature news, which, in its own right, is just as big and important as anything else that’s happening. Stephen Burt gives us the lowdown on four new titles from the world or poetry. The MC Journal examines the future of literary publishing and wonders what the fuss is all about, Jonathan Lethem is to begin teaching at Pomona College next fall, Zadie Smith’s third novel is a ‘beautiful’ achievement, and Benjamin Black’s latest tale is excerpted in the Elegant Variation. Elsewhere, academic writing is taken to task in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the importance of high-quality literary translation is reiterated by Tim Parks in the Observer. If that’s not a marriage of literary culture, we don’t know what is. — Kevin Murphy

(more…)

Coming Soon To A Graveyard Near You

Walter Skold of Freeport, Maine likes dead poets. In 2008, he founded the Dead Poets Society of America, an organization that pays homage to the giants, and not-so giants, of American poetry.

(more…)

Look Out, WordPress!

Yesterday I wrote a long post about a book, a man, and baseball. The book was a collection of poems by Maged Zaher. The man was Bill Corbett, an editor at Pressed Wafer, who published the book by Maged Zaher. Baseball was thrown into the fray because Bill Corbett sent me the book by Maged Zaher in the mail, and along with the book were three postcards with silly pictures of Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez was carrying a woman’s purse.

(more…)

1. Farther up

You stop where two streets divide.
Down one path you see trees talking,
probably whispering. Their bark
is barely chatting, but the trees
are shaking their branches, dropping
little leaves, judging you.

2. Farther out

You see the other path, no trees
but all the dead relatives whose
names you cannot remember.
You think you see Gloria or Gina
or Georgia.

3. Farther in

The trees might have been a bad choice.
They are bringing up embarrassing past
events in your life. They know too much
and their branches are barking hurtful
things. Even the falling leaves sound
like laughter twirling to the ground.

4. Farther away

The trees become the past. You leave
your secrets to them, and hope they keep
quiet. You think about the old relatives
and wish you could remember their names.
You promise to remember their names.

5. Farther down

The earth begins to spew up seeds all around you.
Your relatives have found a way towards you
and begin to eat the seeds. Their skin blooms
and green splits from the top of their heads. Their
wrinkled feet seep into the ground and turn stiff.
Everything is changing and becoming coppice.
This is what you expected.

_____________________________________

Alexander York is a graduate student and writer living in Chicago. Alexander’s work can be found or will soon be appearing in Word Riot, Another Chicago Magazine, Oyez Review, The Madison Review, Strange Machine, and The Red Rock Review. When he’s not working on his thesis, he spends most of his time fiddling with his 8-track recorder, riding his bike, and scouring the city for delicious restaurants. His blog is www.thepinatacasket.blogspot.com.

Where Once There Were Weeds...

It’s been dry lately, awfully dry. But the last few days have seen storm clouds come near. We’ve mentioned the weather before, which makes sense, because it’s becoming our habit to turn on the weather radio each morning. It’s the yard, you see. We need rain for the grass. All of this attention to mundane domesticity makes us feel like Henry Pulling, the banker from Travels with my Aunt, quietly tending the garden after work and then retiring for the evening. However, what we have that poor Henry did not is a cornucopia of literature links from around the Web, such as The Washington Post’s study of presidential reading and how it has shaped respective policies. The publishing industry has discovered fresh opportunity with the current surge of electronic reading. Speaking of techno-reading, Ian McEwan discusses it in an interview with Tina Brown. You could eavesdrop on two poets walking Manhattan, or you may want to pick up Shane Jones’s novel – “a slipstream loop where bureaucracy and hallucination are so intertwined that you’re often confused which is the most absurd.” Go on, grow your mind. – Andrew Geer