On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 6:45 AM, Donald Hall <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear David,
Amazing, "America's Best Top Poet." At least they don't say "Bard." Guest appearances on Fox News? Did Bill and Hillary Clinton really do guest editors of The Best American Poetry? I don't remember.
I'm watching the space!
Don
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 2:56 PM, David Lehman wrote:
Dear Don,
Stacey and I had a lot of fun composing that announcement. It was an April Fool's Day joke, but apparently so well-conceived that it took in a lot of people. Say, maybe someone in the industry will notice and make us an offer we can't refuse. Luckily I don't own a race-horse.
I am hoping that Elizabeth Bishop will be the guest editor of BAP one year.
Love,
David
On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 6:56 AM, Donald Hall <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear David,
Good for you and Stacey! I'm too dumb to notice the dates on propositions! I think it was 2002 when on April 1 I had a letter headed The Immortality Project or something, which told me that I had been chosen for their enterprise, and I would have to vacate my house and spend three months at the Holiday Inn in New London while they tore down my house and barn and copied them exactly, with apparent white clapboards and green shutters, and the barn of unpainted wood, in permanent concrete. When I returned, I would discover a small box office erected at the side of my driveway, where visitors could buy tickets for the house tour…
It took me a while before I noticed that it was dated April 1. It was Linda.
Bishop will be a good choice to be editor. I hope you will get around to Robert Lowell, not to mention Richard Wilbur.
Best to you both,
Don
On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 2:15 PM, David Lehman wrote:
We recently learned that the moguls of Hollywood have cooked up "America's Next Top Poet." Unbelievable. Read more here.
<<<
Fox network announced today that it will headline its fall programming with "America's Next Top Bard."
In the pilot, contestants are asked to memorize and recite a soliloquy from Hamlet, to write a bad sonnet on a quotation to be disclosed from Susan Sontag's literary essays, and to take part in the "Instant Haiku" round. Veteran impresario Bob Holman and chanteuse Stacey Kent join Franco and Lehman as hosts and judges.
Forthcoming episodes will focus on competitors representing elite colleges, corporations, and television networks. The celebrity competitors in the pilot are Kate Mara, Josh Charles, and Elisabeth Moss, pictured at left, a Los Angeles native, who will turn thirty-two on July 24.
Lehman explained that the thematic unity of the pilot derives from T. S. Eliot's characterization of April as "the cruelest month."
"That's as much as I can say right now," said Lehman.
Subsequent episodes will follow the format similar to other "America's Top" reality programs: a large pool of aspiring poets will be winnowed down over the course of a season to one standout winning bard. Participants will be matched with poetry mentors who will advise them on developing a "voice," adhering to poetic forms while inventing new ones, writing a convincing bio note, and applying makeup for an author's photo. The winning prizes will include publication in The New Yorker "Page Turner" blog, an off-site reading at an upcoming AWP conference, and lunch with an esteemed poet of the winner's choice.
Judges will come from the ranks of former guest editors of The Best American Poetry. Rumors have circulated that Bill and Hillary Clinton will be reunited with former White House guests Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky, and Robert Hass to judge the crucial fifth elimination episode. Matthew Weiner, creator of the popular Mad Men series, who recently disclosed in a Paris Review interview that from ninth grade on he "wrote poetry compulsively," is likely to anchor at least one episode as a judge.
Watch this space for more details as they come!
— sdh
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