Wednesday's Writerly Happenings

Now With Pictures!

Wednesday and the world waits for the word. But the word, of course, is expressed, heard and understood by different people in different ways. Some people think printed books are dying, while others contest publishing is thriving. Ray Bradbury prophesied a similar dilemma, and now 451 is being published as a graphic novel. Iran is both loose and tight when it comes to words. Fortunately, the lit scene there is not. In fact, you might say it has found its voice.  Singer/poet Leonard Cohen is admired for his words, more are written about him in the New Yorker.  Yerra Sugarman discusses translating Yiddish poetry, the Seattle Times dismantles Kindle’s wordy appeal, and Silliman’s Blog has commentary on the New York School — that venerable hive of east coast wordsmiths — from which the Jersey poet Joel Lewis remains comfortably at odds. – Kevin Murphy

– As the end time for printed books draws near, Fahrenheit 451, the 1953 novel that envisioned it all, has just been published, again. And this time it reads like a joke—an extended, ironic, illustrated joke. Because this time, Ray Bradbury’s novel about firemen who burn books instead of putting out fires is—oof!—a comic book. — Fahrenheit 451 in Slate

– Shahriar Mandanipour was 39 years old and a literary star in Iran when, in 1995, he was invited to address the Writers’ Association of Armenia. Accompanying him would be 22 of Iran’s most important novelists and poets, also invited by the Armenians in a spirit of literary brotherhood. — Iranian Literature in The National

– Cohen began his musical career suspended between song and speech. In 1967, “Songs of Leonard Cohen” introduced listeners to Cohen’s strong nasal tenor, which suited the casual roué he conjured on songs like “Suzanne” and “So Long, Marianne.” — Leonard Cohen in the New Yorker

These E-books Are Getting Dusty

– E-book sales reported to the Association of American Publishers have been rising sharply since the beginning of 2008, just after the release of the Kindle. It’s the best sustained growth the industry has seen since the International Digital Publishing Forum began tracking sales in 2002 — a sign that e-books finally could be about to break into the mainstream. — Digital Publishing in the Seattle Times

– The modernist group of Yiddish poets that came into prominence in the 1920s was called “The Introspectivists” (”In Zikh” in Yiddish, meaning, literally, “Inside the Self”). Significant poems were written by Jacob Stodolsky, Jacob Glatstein, or Glatshteyn, Celia Dropkin, N.B. Minkov, Aaron Glants-Leyeles, B. Alquit, Mikhl Likht, and by others, not directly associated with the group, such as H. Leyvik or Leivick, Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Anna Margolin, and Mani Leyb. Margolin and Dropkin actually defied categorization, the latter only loosely associated with “The Introspectivists.” — Yerra Sugarman Interview in Two Worlds

Quick, Name These NY School Poets

– There is an irony or three in equating the NY School 4.0 with Joel Lewis. For one thing, Lewis is the quintessential New Jersey poet of our time, as much so as Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Amiri Baraka, David Shapiro or Joel Ceravolo were for theirs. For another, Lewis doesn’t write in what many people take to be the archetypal “New York School” manner, that adaptation of Ashbery’s methodological tics & quirks, the smooth surface & all-over allusiveness that is just a little too charming to be read as diffidence. — New York School in Silliman’s Blog

Video: Leonard Cohen