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An Evening With John Ashbery [by Stephanie Paterik]
John Ashbery, who forged his poetry career out of a genius ability to surprise us, spent last Monday evening talking about the art of chance. The poet visited an audience of 300 people at…
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Here’s to You, Julius La Rosa
The default on my satellite radio is 73, "Seriously Sinatra," which is almost always great, not least because you get to hear guest disc jockeys like Steve Lawrence talk about singing, maybe sing a…
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Some Thoughts on Zadie Smith’s Trepidations with Face Book [by Joe Weil]
“The hypertrophy of information leads to the atrophy of form” – Kenneth Burke In 1927, over 80 years before Zadie Smith warned us of the vapid communications, and the break down of the private…
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More from the Big Bishop Birthday Bash
Mark Strand reading "First Death in Nova Scotia (c)Lawrence Schwartzwald Alice Quinn of the Poetry Society of America brilliantly organized the group reading Tuesday February 8th honoring the 100th anniversary of Elizabeth Bishop's birth.…
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Iris in the House: William Carlos Williams and Things Made Out of Words [by Joe Weil]
There are many poets who enjoy disliking William Carlos Williams. He wrote poems that seem distinguished only by their adherence to the tossed off. They make no major claims. They seem jotted off. So…
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Finding a Poem (by Laura Orem)
I often tell my students that one of the most useful writing skills they can develop is eavesdropping. Yesterday, I found myself in the waiting room of the county Adult Probation Office (I was…
