Archive for 'Literary News'
Fall Schedule Unveiled for KGB Bar Poetry!
Mark up your calendar! The new KGB season is here.
Full Story“Empty Houses”: Ernest Hilbert Remember Rachel Wetzsteon
Share The web magazine Able Muse recently posted a number of eloquent and moving tributes to the late poet Rachel Wetzsteon. You may read remembrances by Gregory Dowling, David Mason, A.E. Stallings, Rachel Hadas, David Yezzi, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Lorna Knowles Blake, and Robert E. Clark by clicking here. “Empty Houses”: Ernest Hilbert Remember Rachel [...]
Full Story“With increasing official recognition, her abstractions, pseudo-philosophizing, self-importance, and centerless long lines have completely spun out of control”: Check out Anis Shivani’s “Fifteen Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers”
Are the writers receiving the major awards and official recognition really the best writers today? Or are they overrated mediocrities with little claim to recognition by posterity? The question is harder than ever to answer today, yet it is a worthwhile exercise to attempt (along with identifying underrated writers not favored by bureaucracy).
Full StoryWear Your Books at “Out of Print T-Shirts”
Share Check out the selection of classic book covers available over at www.outofprintclothing.com by clicking on Naked Lunch.
Full StoryThe ode must traverse the problem of solipsism before it can approach participating in the unity which is no longer accessible. Wait, what?
Helena Echlin on academic literary criticism as nonsense.
Full Story“The Great Poetry Purge of 2010″: Daniel Nester Investigates the Poetry Scandal at the Paris Review
Share Daniel Nester rakes some muck over at We Who Are About to Die: Picture this: you have your poems accepted by The Paris Review. Such an acceptance can mark the start of a great career, lead to a book deal or to be anthologized, or perhaps solidify a reputation in the small world this [...]
Full StoryRed Hen’s 16th Anniversary Champagne Luncheon featuring Toi Derricotte, Christopher Rice and Yusef Komunyakaa
Share Red Hen Press would like to invite you to our most important event of the year: our 16th Anniversary Champagne Luncheon at the Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles on November 7, 2010. As a major fundraiser for the press and for our Writing in the Schools program, this spectacular event will feature conversations with [...]
Full Story“I’ll get ballistic on occasion when I realize more people know the work of J. Lo than the work of Alice Munro”: Ernest Hilbert Interviews Novelist Lewis Robinson
Share I interviewed Lewis Robinson back in 2003, when his collection of short stories, Officer Friendly, was published. The interview originally appeared in nowCulture magazine. Ernest Hilbert: Most of the stories in Officer Friendly are set in areas like Point Allison and Cuxabexis. Can you talk a bit about the settings? Lewis Robinson: Setting is [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert interviews novelist Jennifer Egan about her book Look at Me
Share Jennifer Egan’s new book A Visit from the Goon Squad is reviewed on the cover of this week’s New York Times Book Review. Here’s an interview I conducted with Ms. Egan back in 2002 on her best-selling novel Look at Me. Ernest Hilbert: What are your principal influences? Jennifer Egan: That’s such a hard [...]
Full Story“Do You Want Fries with That?” Scans as Iambic Trimeter
Share The worthy young editors over at LineBreak magazine have issued their first t-shirt to help raise money for their excellent online audio publication. Here is their angle: Funding a literary magazine is no easy task. We’ve never liked asking for donations, and reading fees make our skin crawl. So today we’re proud to announce [...]
Full StoryWho, or What, is the Nepotist? Only the Nepotist Knows . . .
Share Poets like to publish friends. It’s true, and it’s always been true. Still, it’s only fair that matters, such as submissions, be handled equitably in a public forum, like a magazine. Editors strive be impartial, support newcomers, and promote outsiders. This is a proud, civic-minded, and very American way of doing things. But we [...]
Full StoryPoets Down the Pub: Ernest Hilbert with Richard Price, Katy Evans-Bush, and Jon Stone
“Poets Down the Pub”: Ernest Hilbert reads with Richard Price, Katy Evans-Bush, and Jon Stone at the famous Lamb Pub, Monday, May 31st, 2010, 7:00-9:00 PM
Full StoryTop Fifty Literary Put-Downs, Courtesy of the Newark Examiner
Share Thanks to E-Verser Tom Hutt for sending this in. Here are three examples. Read the full list by clicking here. John Milton’s Paradise Lost, according to Samuel Johnson: Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than [...]
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“English spoken here”: David Yezzi on the “New Generation” of British Poetry
Share The best books of poetry being published in the United States these days are not by Americans; they’re by Brits. For American readers of poetry—typically poets themselves, alas—this will come as a bitter pill, though I suspect few will quiet their amour-propre long enough to swallow it. The pat arguments against British poetry—too well-mannered, [...]
Full StoryRed Hen at the Geffen Theater
Share Red Hen Press, in association with The Geffen Theater, is pleased to invite you to spend an evening with Chris Abani, Cornelius Eady, and Allison Joseph, part of Red Hen’s Monday Evenings at the Geffen, a reading and conversation series hosted by Kate Gale. Red Hen’s Monday Evenings gives writers a stage to speak, [...]
Full StorySheep Meadow Press Presents Stephanos Papadopoulos and Christopher Bakken, Tonight Only!
Share Thursday, April 1st at 7PM Founded in 1977, Sheep Meadow is a non-profit press dedicated to poetry, poets, and books of particular interest to poets. Sheep Meadow is attracted to poets of great merit who for one reason or another have been turned away from commercial publishers. Unobtrusively but decisively, Stephanos Papadopoulos’ work is [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert, with Caleb Barber and novelist Dave King, at the Bowery Poetry Club
Share Hey, stop by the Bowery Poetry Club on Wednesday, March 31st, for an evening of new American writers. Click here for the Academy of American Poets listing. Ernest Hilbert with poet Caleb Barber and Dave King, author of the best-selling The Ha-Ha, soon to be a major motion picture starring Josh Brolin. March 31, [...]
Full StoryPatton Oswalt for Poet Laureate!
Share Patton Oswalt for Poet Laureate from Patton Oswalt
Full StoryLevi Stahl Urges Ernest Hilbert to Write a Noir Novel-in-Verse over at Quarterly Conversation
Share Mr. Stahl, poetry editor for Quarterly Conversation, writes on their new blog, Constant Conversation: Even the least money-conscious among us has a fantasy about what he’d do if he came into a windfall of absurd proportions, right? A trip around the world? An apartment in Tokyo? A shelf full of rare first editions? Me, [...]
Full Story“The Dramatic Element” by David Yezzi
Share David Yezzi’s new essay on the dramatic element in poetry is making some waves, sowing controversy, and raising some hackles, as usual. Here is a bit of it. Click here to read the rest. The critic David Orr was, I believe, talking about the current state of the lyric when he characterized “the trendiest [...]
Full StoryMolly’s Books is Back!
Share After a two year vacation, Molly’s Books is back in the Italian Market in South Philadelphia, so while you’re stocking up on bison loin and red snapper, stop in and grab a book to read on the way home. We are open from Wednesday through Friday, from 12 till 6 and Saturday and Sunday [...]
Full StoryFaulkner, Exley, Chandler? Who’s the Greatest Drunk American Writer? (#1 is a Tie!)
Share Head over to SofaKingDrunk.com to see the list of top ten greatest drunk American writers of all time. Here are a few choice remarks on the subject by the contenders: “An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.” – Ernest Hemingway “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, [...]
Full Story2010 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival
Novelists, biographers, historians, poets, critics, politicians, soldiers, public servants, scientists, and medics will be joined by artists, philosophers, theologians, architects, engineers, botanists, environmentalists and children’s writers.
Full StoryVerse Theater Lives at the Bowery Poetry Club
Share Verse Theater Manhattan presents Dirty Dan & Other Travesties New Verse Monologues by David Yezzi Music by Chris Lee Wednesday, March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day), 8 PM Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery, NYC
Full Story“Why would I subcribe to a poetry magazine that doesn’t like my poetry?”: Tim Green on the World of Poetry Publishing
Share Tim Green wrote an observant and surely accurate post on the current state of American poetry publishing over at his blog. Check it out. Here’s a clip: I’ve explained this situation countless times over the last five years, and I always assumed it was just sour grapes—“My poems are me, and if you don’t [...]
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Ernest Hilbert Reads With Ben Downing, Adam Kirsch, and Rachel Wetzsteon
Share The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, edited by David Yezzi, invites you to an evening of poetry Seating is limited and the event is nearly sold out! Please RSVP to Callie Siskel: siskel@newcriterion.com or 212-247-6980 Wednesday, December 2, 2009 Reception at 6:00 Remarks at 6:30 Readings by Ernest Hilbert, Ben Downing, Adam Kirsch, [...]
Full StoryE-Verser Theresa Ortolani Invites You to a Wild Party in New York to Celebrate the Release of Her Extreme New Photobook “Endurance”
Share Click on the poster below to visit the event’s website! Theresa Ortolani is a good friend, long-time E-Verser, and superb, high-energy photographer. So I urge you all: Stop by and dip in where the worlds of sleek fashionistas, gritty dirt bikers, New York literati, and cutting-edge photographers come together for an unforgettable evening. Click [...]
Full StoryCheck out the new Andrew Goodspeed poem over at LineBreak Magazine
Share Just click here to head over to read the poem from America’s ex-pat poet of darkness and hear the excellent recording by the very cool Ashley McHugh.
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