E-Verse Radio

E-Verse Top 100 Cool Novels #79: Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis, 1922

Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis, 1922.
It’s rare that a novel or one of its characters enters everyday language. Most people can identify Captain Ahab or Hester Prynne, and their circumstances or personalities may be summoned to make a point about obsession or hypocrisy. But only rarely does a novel get right to the heart of a [...]

E-Verse Top 100 Cool Novels #80: A Fan’s Notes, Frederick Exley, 1968

E-Verse Top 100 Cool Novels #80: A Fan’s Notes, Frederick Exley, 1968.
This fictional memoir is as breathless and manic as its author surely was when couch-surfing his way across Eisenhower’s America, steadfastly refusing to grow up, always lurking in the shadow of his beloved local sports-hero father, who died at 40. Fred, Ex, Exley, [...]

Top Five Books Recently Published by Dead Authors

5. This is Walter by David Foster Wallace

4. Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut

3. The Suicide Run by William Styron
2. My Father’s Tears and Other Stories by John Updike

1. The Original of Laura, by Vladimir Nabokov. Sure, he declined to publish it during his lifetime, but hey, he’d wanted Lolita destroyed, too.

Extra: Pirate Latitudes [...]

Books Read or Reread for Reasons of Nostalgia by Ernest Hilbert in 2009

Here’s my roundup of books read in the last year. It should be immediately apparent that I have no organizational principle whatsoever. I simply grab whatever catches my eye and read it. This is most immature and unbecoming, I know, but I’ve found that if I don’t read what I like it becomes a chore [...]

“A voucher system based on mutual fear”: Daniel Nester Interviewed at Bookslut

“When I think about all the effort I put into writing poems, being a poet, reading contemporary poetry, it just makes me sick. These days, if I read a poem now of a certain kind—one that avoids feeling, a speaker, or making any connection with the reader, of which there are many—I feel sick. I [...]

Ernest Hilbert’s Aim Your Arrows at the Sun Makes at Least One Annual Reading List

I was delighted to find myself included in this excellent list of books read in 2009 by the host of the blog withhiddennoise.com. Scan the list. I’ll post my list of books read in 2009 later this week.

Copies of Ernest Hilbert’s Aim Your Arrows at the Sun Still Available

I’ve been told that some readers did not understand how to order my limited edition chapbook Aim Your Arrows at the Sun. I understand entirely. It is not a commercially published book, so though it will appear in independent bookstores in select cities and from the press’s website it will not be available on Amazon [...]

Sixty Sonnets Selected as Book of the Year (Poetry) by ivebeenreadinglately.com

From ivebeenreadinglately.com:
Ernest Hilbert’s Sixty Sonnets is exactly what its title suggests—and thus it’s a performance as much as a book of poems, showy and spectacular. From the brisk noir of “She Remembers How They Fled from the Liquor Store Robbery in New Mexico”—
You’d been shot three times, soaked with tar and sweat,
But you gunned the [...]

Kara’s Latest Creation: a Poster for Ernest Hilbert’s Reading with Mark Schorr at the Pierre Menard Gallery

Kara’s done it again! She’s made a lovely poster, limited to 12 copies signed by authors and promoters, for Ernest Hilbert’s reading at the Pierre Menard Gallery in Cambridge, MA. Check it out!

“I WOULDN’T WORRY ABOUT IT . . . IT’S NOT A BIG COLLEGE TOWN”
LIMITED EDITION SIGNED POSTER ADVERTISING
ERNEST HILBERT AND MARK SCHORR’S READING
AT [...]

“The concern here seems to be with writing poetry, not playing the role of poet”: Alexander Nazaryan reviews the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets for The Faster Times

“It’s hard to believe, but poetry was once a dangerous enterprise: Plato suggested that in his Republic, poets would be banished because they were, at heart, rabble-rousers and dissimulators. What Plato couldn’t accomplish Stalin did, executing anyone who dared to cross the dictator with unflattering verse. But we, a more humane breed, would never think [...]

“There was a time when difficult literature was exciting”: Lev Grossman on the Future of the Novel in the Wall Street Journal

There was a time when difficult literature was exciting. T.S. Eliot once famously read to a whole football stadium full of fans. And it’s still exciting—when Eliot does it. But in contemporary writers it has just become a drag. Which is probably why millions of adults are cheating on the literary novel with the young-adult [...]

“The author of the first poem, the sullen punk, aping Brando, will not make eye contact and speaks in monosyllables, yet he exudes an allure of danger, even mystery”: In Memoriam: Thom Gunn

From the December 2004 issue of the Contemporary Poetry Review.
Thomson William “Thom” Gunn (1929-2004).
It will be frequently remarked elsewhere that the past year saw many fine poets cross the bar, but only one of them devoted huge energies to poems about young men crossing barroom floors. The Anglo-Californian Thom Gunn, who died this year at [...]

“Sky Nails” by Jamie McKendrick

That first day, to break me in,
my hardened comrades
sent me scampering like a marmoset
from the topmost parapet
to the foreman’s hut
for a bag of sky nails.
The foreman wondered which precise
shade of blue I had in mind.
It’s still sky nails I need today
with their faint threads
and unbreakable heads
that will nail anything
to nothing
and make it stay.

Some Photos and a Fun Video Slideshow from the E-Verse Party at R.U.B.A.

Check out some photographs from the E-Verse anniversary party at R.U.B.A.! See all your favorites, Paul, Ernie, Lynn, Kara, Jessica the Contessa, Ffej, Niamh, and of course DOMO!

“These Go to Eleven” Don’t forget: Saturday, June 27th, E-Verse Eleventh Anniversary Party at Ruba

Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 9:00pm till . . . . we’ll figure that out that night.
Ruba Hall
414 Green St
Philadelphia, PA
It’s been ten full years, and July 1st will start the eleventh year of continuous operation here at E-Verse Radio! Hard to believe. We wanted to have a tenth anniversary party, but E-Verse assistant producer [...]

“These Go to Eleven”: E-Verse Eleventh Anniversary Party, Saturday, June 27th, Philadelphia, Hold the Date

Yes, that’s right, this July 1st will mark a full ten years of E-Verse Radio (and the start of the eleventh year)! We’ll celebrate with a Saturday night of drinks and music at Ruba. June 27th. 9PM. Free and cheap drinks, live music, dancing. Yeah!
Ruba Hall
414 Green St
Philadelphia, PA
215-627-9831
Please RSVP to get onto the guest [...]

Hilbert Goes Electric at the Khyber Pass, and One Heckler Shouts “Judas!”

I performed with the band Mercury Radio Theater at the legendary Khyber Pass rock club last Friday. It was a treacherous and feral evening, kids falling down and upchucking something like poured concrete on the steps of the bodega next door, ominous hunched figures stalking through the crowd, strange doings in the toilets. A dark, [...]

A Short Film Based on Michael Neff’s New Novel Year of the Rhinoceros

Excerpt from Year of the Rhinoceros:
The back-story of the Reagan Era.
Fed with hope, lies, and videotape campaign pledges, the kids had come from all points, from as close as Georgetown University and from as far away as American Samoa. Like Manny, their ambitions and enthusiasm were channeled into thoughts of change, productive and peaceful revolution, [...]

Top Five Philip K. Dick Novels

5. Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick (1959)

4. A Scanner Darkly (1977)

3. Valis (1981)

2. Transmigrations of Timothy Archer (1982)

1. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965)

Runner up: Confessions of a Crap Artist (1975)

E-Verse Top 100 Cool Novels #86: Sula by Toni Morrison

Sula, Toni Morrison, 1974. This wonderful short novel might seem to draw influence from the Magic Realism trend in South American literature (then growing in popularity), but despite apparent affinities with the works of Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez, Morrison’s novel probably owes more to traditional American folk storytelling and the extraordinary history of [...]

“Unreal as a Song”: An evening of new poetry with Ernest Hilbert, Lynn Levin, and Paul Siegell at Head House Books

“Unreal as a Song”
An evening of new poetry by Ernest Hilbert, Lynn Levin, and Paul Siegell to celebrate National Poetry Month!
Head House Books
Philadelphia
April 16th, 7:30PM
$5 tickets in advance

*04.10.08 – Explosions in the Sky – The Trocadero, PA* by Paul Siegell
start slow. cinematic. three guitars, a set of drums.
gently out of bed.
they’ve draped the flag of [...]

Hilbert in Dennis O’Driscoll’s Quote Poet Unquote: Contemporary Quotations on Poetry

I had a pleasant surprise one day last week. After listening to Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed in the park for a while, I decided to stroll over and trawl the shelves of a local bookstore. I was poking around the poetry section and came across a book edited by Dennis O’Driscoll, called Quote [...]

Sixty Sonnets has a binding variant!

Those who purchased multiple copies of Sixty Sonnets from Amazon have begun to discover two binding formats, one matte the other glossy. An English E-Verser (who lives in San Diego) sent in a photograph showing the two covers. Note that the top copy does not reflect the light from the window. Below, I provide the [...]

Wells Tower’s first book Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is out next month

Years ago, I had the privilege of publishing a short story by Wells Tower in the first issue of nowCulture.com’s print annual, NC1. At the time, he lived in New Orleans, and my girlfriend (now wife) and I rocketed down to the Big Easy from Philadelphia in our classic, armor-plated superbox ‘88 Volvo. I got [...]

Ernest Hilbert Reviews Alberto Manguel’s A Reading Diary, A Passionate Reader’s Reflections on a Year of Books

A Reading Diary, A Passionate Reader’s Reflections on a Year of Books, by Alberto Manguel, New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004, $22
The recent popularity of “books about books” is not in itself unusual, but it remains nevertheless a peculiar genre. It is distinct from literary criticism, and it usually comes under the heading of [...]

Ernest Hilbert Interviews Jay Parini about his novel The Apprentice Lover

Ernest Hilbert: Did you spend much time on Capri before writing The Apprentice Lover?
Jay Parini: I first visited Capri in 1971, when I was living in Scotland. I was smitten. I returned again and again throughout the years, never spending a lot of time there, but always touching base. I spent a winter/spring/summer once, in [...]

Visit the Sixty Sonnets website to hear recordings from the book by author Ernest Hilbert

Five Short Reviews by Ernest Hilbert

Lemon by Lawrence Krauser, McSweeney’s Books, 246 Pages, Hardcover, US$16.50; ISBN: 0970335512
Lemon is an exhilarating first novel from playwright Lawrence Krauser, who seems destined to become an icon of his generation. First issued to an unsuspecting public by McSweeney’s, Lemon displays Krauser’s whimsical and keen grasp of the bizarre range of human emotions linked to [...]

Top Five Novels about 9/11 Written Largely from the Perspective of an Innocent Bystander

5. Netherland by Joseph O’Neill (Pantheon, 2008)

4. Falling Man by Don DeLillo (Simon and Schuster, 2007)

3. Windows on the World by Frederic Beigbeder (Miramax, 2005)

2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005)

1. The Good Life by Jay McInerney (Knopf, 2006)

Ernest Hilbert at the Red Hen Table in Chicago

I am back from four days spent in Chicago promoting my new book, Sixty Sonnets.
The book, hot off the presses, sold very well, thanks in no small part to the excellent, hard-working crew at my publisher. Below are some pictures of the publisher’s table and the fine staff behind my new book.
Here I am with [...]