E-Verse Radio

Ernest Hilbert, with Caleb Barber and novelist Dave King, at the Bowery Poetry Club

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, 2010, 6 PM
Bowery Poetry [...]

Ernest Hilbert Reads “Two Portraits” from Aim Your Arrows at the Sun

 
Love Among the Ruins, or LATR, is a small press named after the unfinished Evelyn Waugh novel and based in New York City. It was founded in Summer 2009 by editors Daniel Lin and Margaret Monaghan.
Click here for more information or to purchase Aim Your Arrows at the Sun by Ernest Hilbert.
“Two Portraits” by Ernest [...]

Xaipe

Here is one of our cats, Xaipe. She’s a little killer. Pure evil. Her mother was pregnant with Xaipe and her siblings when we rescued her and found homes for all kittens (and mom). Her name is a Greek salutation, akin to “rejoice” in English, and it is one of the longest continually-used greetings in [...]

Levi Stahl Urges Ernest Hilbert to Write a Noir Novel-in-Verse over at Quarterly Conversation

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, I think I’d [...]

Winners of the Tollund 2010 Poetry Prize Contest

The Tollund Group has announced winners in its first annual poetry translation prize:
We are proud to announce the winners of the Tollund 2010 Poetry Prize Contest. The challenge was to recreate the words of a particular sonnet in the Nordic languages. This contest was different from other poetry translation contests in that it was on [...]

“It’s a Horror Poem”: Comment on “While You Were Out”

Over at his blog, Noise for Its Own Sake, Justin Hamm commented on my poem “While You Were Out“:
There’s so much quality poetry out there these days that it’s impossible to keep up with everything, but I’d like to link to a handful of poems that’ve really resonated for me lately.
The first, “While You Were [...]

Jersey Shore Before MTV’s “Jersey Shore”, or, Before Snooki There Was Ernie

I have developed the unshakable habit of calling the impish, overnight-star of “Jersey Shore” something like “Smoochi” or “Snoopy” when compelled to discuss the show in polite company. It seems I can only devote so much of my brain to information about people who haven’t actually done anything. E-Verse assistant producer Kara, one of the [...]

Upcoming Readings for Ernest Hilbert

What follows is merely a thumbnail sketch of my readings for the first half of the year. More may be added, and you should certainly double-check the details (time, for instance, and lineup) closer to the dates to be sure of what you’ll be getting yourself into. I hope to see you at one of [...]

Ernest Hilbert’s Poem “While You Were Out” Read by X.J. Kennedy in the New Issue of LineBreak Magazine

Click here to head over to Ashley Anna McHugh’s indispensable online audio poetry magazine LineBreak to hear elder statesman Mr. X.J. Kennedy deliver a reading of my poem “While You Were Out,” from my forthcoming collection All of You on the Good Earth. You may stream directly from the site. This recording will also turn [...]

E-Verse is Snowed In!

It’s really picking up now, so we have snow, which was already on a layer of snow, and between a nice shanking of icy rain just to make it that much nicer. But being snowed in for the day isn’t so bad when one has books, and grub, and coffee, and cool cats, and a [...]

“Enemies and Co.” by Ernest Hilbert, in The Oxonian Review

After Cyril Connolly

So many, the enemies of promise.
They’re everywhere. Larkin imagined a toad,
Squatting on the back, weighing us down, called work.
You’re smothered half to death by false kindness.
The temp job stinks. They increased your workload.
Lunch talk is dry and spiteful. You grip your fork
While they jaw about the next vacation.
They couldn’t care less about your [...]

Sixty Sonnets Stickers all over the Place

Here’s one spotted at the Joyce Kilmer rest stop (yeah, I put it there), one of many rest stops around the US named after poets: “I think that I shall never see  / A poem lovely as a tree.” Or as lovely as this rest stop. Mike Chasar over at Poetry and Popular Culture and [...]

Hilbert Returns from New England Having Vanquished Many Herring

From Oxford to Boxford! I managed to consume 13 courses of herring (followed by many other Danish delicacies and much aquavit and wine). E-Verser Patrick celebrated my return to the City of Brotherly Love with a cartoon. Check out the full menu, below. A six hour feast that left many hundreds of dead soldiers (bottles, [...]

“Or thy shoe I wish to be, / That thou might’st but tread on me”: Recently Unearthed Photograph of the Band Anacreon Featuring Ernest Hilbert on Bass

Ah, yes. “Sated with thy summer feast, / Thou retir’st to endless rest” wrote Anacreon, the Greek poet of wine and song. Anacreon also loaned his name to the 1980s heavy metal band Anacreon, featuring a 16-year-old Ernest Hilbert on bass. The bass itself (later stripped of its white enamel and painted black, to appear [...]

Recording of Ben Downing, Ernest Hilbert, and Adam Kirsch reading at the Grolier Club for the publication of the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets

Rachel Wetzsteon was scheduled to read with us that evening (December 2nd, 2009). She was unable to attend. Callie Siskel read one of her poems. Have a listen.

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 [...]

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 [...]

A New Saga, Yoda, David Yezzi, Lynn, and Ernie

Thanks to E-Verser Patrick for this fan art. Very classy.

“Revving up tradition?” OK: Hilbert Name-Checked at The Wooden Spoon

Head over to The Wooden Spoon for some commentary on the internet and the future of poetry. Here’s a sample:
While the internet may be wonderful for distribution, it is a terrible tool for helping people actually decide what to read; and, given a glut of otherwise indiscernible choices, most people will simply ignore the noise. [...]

Ernie and the Christmas Octopus: A Touching Showtime Original Movie

“What, Ho! The Christmas Cephalopod. We must act fast!”
These striped pantaloons aren’t as slimming as that sea hag promised.

Three Poems by Ernest Hilbert in the First Issue of Scythe

Three of the poems from my second full-length collection, All of You on the Good Earth (2012), appear in the inaugural issue of the online magazine Scythe, edited by Joseph and Chenelle Milford, of the Joe Milford Poetry Show. Head on over the check out the site.
∞
What is the chance that it would fold like [...]

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Be good, and have a happy New Year. I’m off to DC for a Peruvian Christmas (a feast at midnight on Christmas Eve!). Thanks to E-Verser Patrick for the great artwork!

Ernest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Songs of the Decade, 2000-2009

Note: I’ll feature each of the top twenty-five of the two hundred in its own post over the next month, you can go ahead and see the full list now!
Ernest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade
Two hundred? Strange number, right? Yes, I suppose. Here’s the story. I sat down last night after [...]

Ernest Hilbert Blogs at Red Hen Press Blog Christmas Week

That’s right. I’m bloggging away for my publisher this week, so head on over to their blog and check out my first post on Roberts Hayden and Graves, community radio stations, and lots and lots of snow.

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 [...]

Four Poems by Ernest Hilbert in Joe Maynard’s Hip Magazine BEET

Joe Maynard is a star of stage and antiquarian book fair, a strange thing, you might think, but he’s as cool as they come; his band, Maynard and the Musties, issued an album produced by alt-rock hearthrob Ryan Adams. Joe recently revived his classic magazine BEET in an online format. He called me up for [...]

Ernest Hilbert Reads A.E. Stallings’ poem “Alice in the Looking Glass” for LineBreak Magazine

Head on over the LineBreak to hear the recording. The poem was recorded by Dave Young at Widget Studios for Pub Can Records and LineBreak magazine. Click on the miniature speaker next to the poem’s title to listen.
Click here to visit the site.

Ernest Hilbert Reads His Poem “Drift” for Think Journal

Click on the image below to hear Ernest Hilbert read his poem “Drift,” from the forthcoming (2012) collection All of You on the Good Earth. Recorded by Dave Young at Widget Studios for Pub Can Records and Think Journal.

Ernest Hilbert Reads the Poem “Cover to Cover” from Rattle Magazine’s “Tribute to the Sonnet”

Ernest Hilbert reads the poem “Cover to Cover,” from the new issue of Rattle magazine.

Cover to Cover

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders
on the chaos of memories. – Walter Benjamin
I don’t collect them. They just accumulate,
Tower higher into shoddy columns,
Climbing weirdly like crystal formations
Or pillars of coral. The thought of their [...]

The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, edited by David Yezzi, invites you to an evening of poetry

Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Reception at 6:00
Remarks at 6:30
Readings by Ernest Hilbert, Ben Downing, Adam Kirsch, and Rachel Wetzsteon
The Grolier Club
47 East 60th Street
New York, NY
Space is limited! RSVP to Callie Siskel: siskel@newcriterion.com or 212-247-6980