Reading List: Kim Addonizio and Cate Marvin

It's taken me awhile to find poets who are kind of doing the same thing that I'm trying to do, only doing it better (and selling books :)

Successful hometown poet Kim Addonizio, in her latest volume What Is This Thing Called Love, and Cate Marvin, another hometown poet with a critically acclaimed sophomore effort, Fragment of the Head of a Queen, are such ladies. I will sit at their feet and take notes (not literally, of course, lest I unwittingly lift something ;)

Even Atheists Write Poetry

... and some of it is pretty good.
I'm thinking of submitting something myself.

The Eloquent Atheist

Reading List - Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times

I found this book at Barnes & Noble tonight. As a customer mentions in his Amazon review, the title and cover art may turn some people off, and he does have a point; the suicidal-looking high school girl on the black and white cover does make it seem, in combination with the title, like a narrative of a psychiatric disorder -- something poetry has had enough difficulty in distinguishing itself from...
And other reviews accused the editor of selecting poetry for "the lowest common denominator" -- i.e. that the average person would be touched by (oh, the horror! ;) And we wonder why the average person doesn't read poetry anymore, with these kinds of attitudes abounding.
The book is actually a British import, which explains, I guess, both the somber look and feel and the bravado of the publisher to actually try to market poetry to the masses... and with success, it appears... The book is a bestseller over there. Good for it.
I've been reading through it and I find the selection quite meaty... maybe not in an academic sense but in a visceral sense, which is really closer to the point of it all, at least, in my opinion.

More fun with grammar curmudgeonry

This peeve is the one that's probably dearest to my heart because it's* so pervasive.

Bob the Angry Flower on "its" vs. "it's"

* correct usage :-P

My new favorite pastime

(Poetry aside, of course.)

FreeRice.com

I posted this on my other blog, but it bears repeating. A fun little word game that boosts your vocabulary while contributing to U.N. food donations to help end world hunger.

Don't you just love the English language?

Well, in fact, I do, despite (or perhaps, in some perverse way, because) of its vagaries of pronunciation.

And speaking of English, there's a bunch of these out there, but I thought this amateur (very amateur :) production of Beowulf was cute, but perhaps not as high in production values as the new film with Angelina Jolie as Grendel's avenging mama.

Quote: Arundhati Roy

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.

-- Arundhati Roy