Archive for January, 2009
Friday, January 30th, 2009
Orwell Finally Comments on Elizabeth Alexander’s Inaugural Poem
There is a great deal of good bad poetry in English, all of it, I should say, subsequent to 1790. Examples of good bad poems – I am deliberately choosing diverse ones – are “The Bridge of Sighs”, “When all the World is Young, Lad”, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, Bret Harte’s “Dickens in [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in random riff-raff by Tim
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
AmFrac’s Wordle
There are definitely more important things to talk about, like continuing the discussion on gender in poetry, but what the heck, let’s take a turn toward the self-important. No one’s going to be interested in this, except me and maybe my wife.
Last month, Robert Peake turned me onto Wordle.net — a really neat website with [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in american fractal by Tim
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
The Gender Question, Part 2
This is a follow-up to Monday’s post.
In January of 2006, the Poetry Foundation released it’s Poetry in America survey (PDF). The study found that 62% of “poetry users” (those who read or wrote poetry in the last five years) were women, only 38% were men. If those numbers remain accurate, then the question immediately rises: [...]
6 Comments » - Posted in poetic mumbo-jumbo, rattle rubbish by Tim
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Around the Web
Follow-up to “The Gender Question” is coming tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are a few links of interest.
FACEBOOK
Most importantly, Rattle now has an active Facebook page. We’re going to be posting regular updates there, event notices, news, things like that. Please, please, please add it and tell your poetic-minded friends to add it. VPR [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in random riff-raff by Tim
Monday, January 26th, 2009
The Gender Question
A few weeks ago someone wrote in, concerned that five of Rattle’s six Pushcart Nominations this year were men, wondering if that said anything about our editorial tendencies. In fact, only four of the six were male — Hayden Saunier is very much female, despite sharing a first name with the famous Carruth — but [...]
7 Comments » - Posted in poetic mumbo-jumbo, rattle rubbish by Tim
Friday, January 23rd, 2009
Note From Jim
James Longenbach was my first poetry professor, and probably my best. He’s also hands-down the best writer on poetry today, in my opinion — writing eloquently not just with a passion for poetry, but with compassion for it, too. If I ever teach a creative writing class, The Art of the Poetic Line will be [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in american fractal by Tim
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
Parables of the Kingdom
I spent this afternoon at the laundromat, reading Chris Anderson’s manuscript The Next Thing Always Belongs, which is coming out from Fairweather Books sometime later this year. Two of his poems have appeared in Rattle: “Living the Chemical Life” was an honorable mention for the 2007 Rattle Poetry Prize, and “Reality Homes” is in this [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in poetic mumbo-jumbo by Tim
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
January Notes
Today’s Found Poem came from New Scientist, one of two magazines I actually subscribe to. (The other is Poetry, if you’re wondering.) It took about 10 minutes to find a poem in there — I only had to wade through the first 11 pages. I think I could find a dozen poems in every issue. [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in random riff-raff by Tim
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
“Yes, We Can” by Marvin Bell
Marvin Bell
YES, WE CAN
On the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America, Jan. 20, 2009.
We are a people who began from a Yes,
A nation born of the yes in the farmland,
The yes engraved in the dirt and stone,
In the mines, in the sea, in the machines
That made girders [...]
8 Comments » - Posted in random riff-raff by Tim
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
The Found Poetry Project
Megan and I started a new online journal a few weeks ago. Though it has no relation to or affiliation with Rattle, they’re both based on the same principal — that poetry is not just for hipsters and pretentious old men in tweed jackets. Where Rattle argues that anyone can enjoy poetry, that poetry is [...]
