The Best American Poetry

Catherine Woodard, Guest Blogger February 18-22

This week we welcome Catherine Woodard as our guest blogger. Catherine worked to return Poetry in Motion to the NYC subways and is a board member of the Poetry Society of America. Her poems have appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Bellingham Review, RHINO, Poet Lore and other journals, and she co-published Still Against War/Poems for Marie Ponsot. Woodard has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences. She is a former newspaper and new media journalist and a past president of Artists Space for emerging visual artists. She lives and plays basketball in NYC. Find out more about Catherine at her website.

Sarah Arvio, guest blogger February 11-15 and giveaway!

This week we welcome Sarah Arvio as our guest blogger.  Arvio's books are Visits from the Seventh (Knopf 2002), Sono: cantos (Knopf 2006), and night thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis, out last month also from Knopf.  She has been the recipient of many honors, including the Rome Prize, and the Guggenheim and Bogliasco fellowships. Her poems have been set to music by William Bolcom and others. For many years a translator for the United Nations in New York and Switzerland, she has also taught poetry at Princeton.  A lifelong New Yorker, she now lives in Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay.

Welcome, Sarah.

We're also pleased to announce that Knopf has generously agreed to sponser this week's giveaway of five copies of Arvio's night thoughts.  Here's what Grace Cavalieri, writing in the Washington Independent Review of Books, has to say about night thoughts: 70 dream poems and notes from an analysis:   "This book is influential because it is one of a kind. . . These are works of strong feelings ringed by messages saying we can’t control our dreams but we can control the poem. From the uncomfortable silence of the psyche’s tundra, Arvio wrings out her truth."

To qualify to receive a copy of Sarah's book, simply respond to her posts in the comment field.  Winners will be the author of the best, most responsive, comments.  Be sure to include a valid e-mail address so that we can contact you for mailing information. 

Molly McQuade, Guest Blogger February 4-8

Molly McQuade was poetry columnist for The Hungry Mind Review, and she founded the poetry review column at Publishers Weekly. Currently she is a columnist for the American Library Association. Her poetry has appeared widely. In a review of her collection of essays about poetry, Stealing Glimpses, she was called "a learned, witty, and absolutely orginal writer" by the Harvard Review. 

Welcome, Molly.

-- sdh

Congratulations to Robert Polito and the Poetry Foundation

The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation has chosen Robert Polito, founder and director of the New School's graduate writing program, to succeed John Barr as the organization's president. Congratulations to the Poetry Foundation on an inspired choice. With Poilito at the helm, the foundation will be in the capable hands of one who has proved his skill and inventiveness in designing and administering programs across the arts. Many poets write in more genres than one, but Polito goes farther than most: he writes sophisticated criticism in several literary genres and in film studies; he has proved his mettle as an editor and anthologist of crime fiction and is acknowledged as one of our foremost experts on film noir. But what distinguishes Polito is that beyond his work as a poet, writer, and editor, he has the vision and energy to create ambitious structures, programs, and events even when working with limited resources. He has an abundance of ideas and we will await with great interest what exciting things are in the cards for the Poetry Foundation, recipients of a famous twelve-figure bequest from the heiress of the Lilly pharmaceutical fortune. (The amount has been calculated as in the "one-hundred-million to two-hundred-million dollar range.") Robert will officially begin his duties there right after the 4th of July holiday weekend.

Robert and I go back to 1987. His long essay in the August 1987 issue of Boston Review was the first extended discussion of my work as a poet and editor. At the time, Robert was teaching at Wellesley College, and he brought me to the campus to give a poetry reading. We became friends and then colleagues when he moved from Boston to New York City and re-invented his career. He had the idea for a graduate writing program at the New School, developed it, refined it, enlisted all the institutional and intellectual support needed -- and we launched in 1996. We have served together at the New School ever since, collaborating on exciting literary projects -- such as the John Ashbery Festival we held in April 2006 or, more recently, the project of involving our faculty and students in the digital mapping of Ashbery's "creative spaces" and in scholarly work springing from access to Ashbery's archives. Since 2004, the Best American Poetry has held its annual launch at the New School each fall. It has become an important event in the New York poetry calendar, and it is merely one of many important things that would not have happened without the advocacy and support of Robert Polito. -- DL

Amy Glynn Greacen, Guest Blogger January 28 - February 1

Amy Glynn Greacen's poems and prose appear in The New Criterion, Orion, Southwest Review, New England Review and elsewhere. She was a fall 2012 writer in residence at the James Merrill House in Stonington, CT.  Her poems have been included in The Best American Poetry 2010 and The Best American Poetry 2012.

Welcome, Amy.

In other news . . .

Where did I read that poem? Search the complete Best American Poetry archive here.

Jennifer L. Knox is still at it over at delirious hem.
-- sdh

Calling All Tattooed Poets: The Tattooed Poets Project 2013

Ericia Mena (c) Photograph by Julie Chen

Our friend Bill Cohen writes to tell us he's compiling the fifth installment of his popular “The Tattooed Poets Project.” Every year since 2009 during National Poetry Month (April), Bill features poets who share their tattoos and the stories behind them. As a bonus, he includes a generous sampling of the poet’s work complete with links and such. 

You can be part of this year's line-up and by doing so you'll join the ranks of Joy Harjo, Kim Addonizio, Brendan Constantine, Eileen Myles, and Noelle Kocot. If you sport ink, please contact Bill at Tattoosday@gmail.com.

Find the index of 120+ poets who have participated The Tattooed Poets Project here.

Thanks Bill for sharing this great project with us.

-- sdh

Thursday, January 24th, 7 pm: Frustration, Joy, and Lust at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. . .

This Thursday, Housing Works bookstore brings you Bill Hayward and scenes from his film asphalt, muscle and bone. Laura Isaacman, editor of The Coffin Factory, discusses art, literature, and film with Bill, whose photographs are the main art feature in issue four of The Coffin Factory.

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street New York, NY 10012

Details here.

Find more about Bill Hayward on this blog here.

Visit Bill's website here.

-- sdh

12:26 EST: Go Richard Blanco, Inaugural Poet ! We're with you 100%!

Stephanie Paterik, Guest Blogger January 21-25

 

This week we welcome Stephanie Paterik as our guest blogger.  Stephanie is a writer, editor and author's assistant in Manhattan. She earned an MFA in poetry from The New School and, as David Lehman’s research assistant, worked on The Best American Poetry 2010, 2011, 2012 and the forthcoming Best of the Best. A Phoenix native and veteran reporter, she studied and taught news writing at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School. Her work has appeared in Anderbo, PARADE, Adweek, The Wall Street Journal, PHOENIX magazine, The Arizona Republic and elsewhere.

Welcome, Stephanie.

In other news . . .

We're pleased to announce that Sharon Preiss will be posting regularly.  Sharon is the owner of Mobile Libris, a NYC-based book-selling service that specializes in selling books at author events. She earned an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College and has taught literature, creative writing and composition classes at various institutions. Her poetry and prose have been published in PIF Magazine, Massachusetts Review, 5AM, The Tucson Weekly, CoverMag, and the Albany Times-Union.

Happy birthday, Cary Grant [by DL]

Born Archie Leach January 18, 1904
Birthplace: Bristol (England)
Versatile actor in comic, dramatic, and romantic roles. Strong contender as handsomest leading man in the movies.
Other distinction: greatest identity crisis in Hollywood history
Origin of name: Boring Hollywood legend has it that "Cary" came from his stage role as a guy named Cary in a musical with Fay Wray, and "Grant" was assigned to him by the studio. You and I can do better
Marital status: five times, with wife #3 (Betsy Drake) the marriage that lasted longest
Comedies with Katharine Hepburn: The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, Holiday
Comedy with Irene Dunne: The Awful Truth
Comedy with Rosalind Russell: His Girl Friday
Frank Capra comedy: Arsenic and Old Lace
Tear-jerker deluxe with Deborah Kerr: An Affair to Remember
Hitchcock movies: Suspicion (Joan Fontaine), Notorious (Ingrid Bergman), To Catch a Thief (Grace Kelly), North by Northwest (Eva Marie Saint)
Best Hitchcock antagonist: James Mason in North by Northwest with Claudr Rains a close second (Notorious)
Last romantic hurrah: Charade (Audrey Hepburn)
Other leading ladies of note: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Doris Day
Unusual fact: took LSD more than 100 times; was introduced to the narcotic by Betsy Drake
Best quote: "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant."
A rose is just a rose: "I never had so much fun since Archie Leach died," he says in His Girl Friday
Grave of Archie Leach: It's in Arsenic and Old Lace
Scandalous posthumous fact that doesn't shock anyone anymore: bi-sexual (Randoph Scott)
Dodger Fan Info: Shared exclusive box seats with Frank Sinatra and Gregory Peck at Dodgers stadium.
Retirement job: Became a director of the Fabergé company and promoted the fragrance firm's products. Vital stats: Rising sign Libra, moon in Aquarius; Water Cat (Chinese astrology); six feet one and a half inches tall. -- DL