Input/Output

I started listening again to Tegan & Sara, whose lyrics are poetic and complex, and I started getting the urge to write again. What you listen to, read, watch, etc. will have an impact on what you produce. I try to stay active in reading poetry and it dramatically affects my poetry writing. I try to keep my library fresh and varied. I bought a few books of poetry my last trip to the used bookstore, and I received several books of poetry recently for my birthday.

What I’m reading now:

Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry, by Jim Daniels

2011 National Book Awards Finalists Announced

The National Book Awards finalists have been announced. For the genre of poetry, the finalists are:

Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split
(TriQuarterly, an imprint of Northwestern University Press)

Yusef Komunyakaa, The Chameleon Couch
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Carl Phillips, Double Shadow
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Adrienne Rich, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010
(W.W. Norton & Company)

Bruce Smith, Devotions
(University of Chicago Press)

The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry

Release Date	October 25th, 2011
Genre	Poetry
About	An unparalled survey of the best poems of the past century

Description	Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U .S. Poet Laureate, introduces readers to the most significant and compelling poems of the past hundred years. Selecting from the canon of American poetry throughout the twentieth century, Dove has created an anthology that represents the full spectrum of aesthetic sensibilities-from styles and voices to themes and cultures-while balancing important poems with significant periods of each poet. Featuring poems both classic and contemporary, this collection reflects both a dynamic and cohesive portrait of modern American poetry and outlines its trajectory over the past century. Rita Dove is an award-winning poet, former U .S. Poet Laureate, and Presidential Scholar. She has published numerous volumes of poetry, fiction, plays, and essays. She is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she lives with her husband, the writer Fred Viebahn.
ISBN	978-014-310643-2
Publisher	Penguin Books

Website	http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Penguin-Anthology-of-20th-Century-American-Poetry-edited-by-Rita-Dove/170993982969511?sk=info
Review	http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-10-21/entertainment/ct-ae-1023-lit-life-main-20111021_1_poet-laureate-rita-dove-nikki-giovanni

Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology

Occupy Wall Street Poetry Update

Plus, read an INTERVIEW with Stephen Boyer and Filip Marinovich at HuffPost.

Word Circus

If You Want to Understand Occupy Wall Street, You Have to Talk to the Poets

“Occupy Wall Street and the Poetry of Now-Time,” by Aaron Gell, The New York Observer: http://www.observer.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-and-the-poetry-of-now-time/

Wallace Stevens Award

Yusef Komunyakaa has been selected as the 2011 Wallace Stevens Award recipient. The Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets make the decision for this award, and the recipient recieves $100,000. There will be a reading by all the 2011 Academeny of American Poets award recipients in New York City on Friday, October 21. The other awards and winners include: Joan Larkin- Academy Fellowship; C.D. Wright- Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Jeffrey Angles- Harold Morton Landon Translation Award; Dominic Siracusa- Raiziss/de Palchi Prize; Anna Moschovakis- James Laughlin Award; and Elana Bell- Walt Whitman Award.

For those not able to travel to NYC, keep in mind that Yusef Komunyakaa will be giving a reading in March at Kent State. I will post more on that when the time comes closer.

National Day on Writing

Activities for the National Day on Writing can be found from the NYTimes Learning Network and their partners, Figment, The National Writing Project, and Edutopia. One suggested activity is to tweet about #whyIwrite. Why do I write?

That’s like asking why I breathe or drink water #whyIwrite

Chatham MFA Alum Page Up

There is now a page where you can go to find photos and stories of Chatham MFA alums from the past six years, myself included. Check it out at http://www.chatham.edu/mfa/alumni/

Past the Patch: A Halloween Anthology

I am pleased and honored to be included in this anthology of Halloween-themed short stories. Here are the details:

Halloween – a holiday that evokes so much. Some say it’s a time when the space between worlds is too thin to bear the weight, and outer things spill over for a bit of Trick Or Treating. The stories found inside this e-anthology echo that idea, reporting back from a corner where the mirror has reflected a distorted image of this season.

Inside we’ll find a young man’s madness has driven him down a bloody path and the brutal folklore of the early 19th century clawed to life. We’ll see domestic bliss marred only by suburban lycanthropy and retail employees devoured by cosmic malevolence. Witches, monsters, and maniacs as written by authors of fantasy, adventure, mystery, poetry, romance and horror. We’ll dig deeper into a celebration now known for masks, candy and pumpkins while immersing ourselves in this anthology. Here, we’ll go past the patch and discover what tales lurk on the other side.

Edited by Brian Fatah Steele

A Dark Red Press Production

Contributors… Sarah E. Adkins, Jonathan Dukestein, Court Ellyn, Matthew Leverton, Jack Lloyd, Jack X. McCallum, H.H. Shullith, John Claude Smith, John J. Smith, C.L. Stegall, J.T. Warren, Robert S. Wilson and Brian Fatah Steele