“Ending with a Diphthong, Ending with a High Front Vowel”: Annoying Scholarly Phonetic Descriptions of Annoying Sounds Annoyed Teenagers Make
Uvular fricatives. Unrounded vowels. Glottal stops. As an English major, I studied linguistics and spent many hours learning my way around affricates, fricatives, and, of course, dipthongs, which sounded vaguely dirty and… Read More
It’s Getting Hotter and Hotter Out There: E-Verse Wants You to Use Good Sunscreens
Thanks to E-Verse Andrew for sending in this list of sunscreens approved by the Environmental Working Group. Click on the logo below to see the list. Don't burn yourselves! It's not the… Read More
“The Hand” by Mary Ruefle
"Ruefle is clearly one of the best American poets writing, and her body of work is remarkable for its spiritual force, intelligence, stylistic virtuosity, and adventurousness." - Tony Hoagland… Read More
Books Contain 50% More Interesting Words Than Television Shows and Other Reasons Why Reading and Writing Really Screw With Your Brain
This visual account of brain activity associated with reading and writing is quite worthwhile and revealing. Poets, novelists, essayists: pay particular attention to the part about cliches. Studies show that cliches do… Read More
Seriously, Guys. “It’s Not About the Nail” by Jason Headly
"Don't try to fix it. I just need you to listen." … Read More
“Talking to Patrizia” by Kenneth Koch
"Charles Simic wrote in The New York Review of Books that, for Koch, poetry 'has to be constantly saved from itself. The idea is to do something with language that has never… Read More
“Time Being” by Adam Fitzgerald
"When the new poet turns up the heat, he gives us just the necessary outrages which make us understand what we never knew we could say." - Richard Howard… Read More
“The Victor Dog” by James Merrill
"I'd like to think the scientists need us, but do they? Did Newton need Blake?" - James Merrill … Read More
“He Was Absolutely Insistent There Was No God, No Future Life, No Hope for the Planet”: Powerful and Utterly Depressing Short Documentary about Philip Larkin
With telling interviews with A.N. Wilson, Martin Amis, and others who knew Larkin. … Read More
“Descansos Negras” by Rick Mullin
Rick Mullin is the author of Soutine (2012), Huncke (2010) and Aquinas Flinched (2008). He works as an editor for the American Chemical Society.… Read More
“The Mutes” by Denise Levertov
Those groans men use passing a woman on the street or on the steps of the subway to tell her she is a female and their flesh knows it, are they a… Read More
E-Verse Heavy Metal Air Dancer!
You know those air dancers, the big plastic tube men that flap around and dance in front of car dealerships and discount furniture warehouses? Well, Lynn and I found ourselves passing one on… Read More
“Dead Boy” by John Crowe Ransom
"Ransom's poetic world is mostly the South, not the South as it actually was when cotton and slavery were crowned heads, not the empirical South that the sociologists study today, but a… Read More
“KV Crimes” by Kurt Vile
Kurt's a shoegazer. He hides behind his hair. He's painfully modest and self-effacing. He's not so much disaffected as simply shy, I think. Plus, he's a Philly guy. You don't walk around… Read More
“The March Wind” by Ben Mazer
Ben Mazer's new collection of poems is New Poems (Pen & Anvil Press, 2013). He is also the author of Poems (Pen & Anvil Press, 2010) and other collections. He is the… Read More
“Strip Mine” by Rebecca Foust
"Foust brings to life an immense range of experience and feeling. This poet's emotional intelligence correlates, too, with her formal skill, that unique talent for phrase and rhythm with which she makes… Read More
“This Is Sally Hatchet” by Father John Misty
Lynn and I caught the Father John Misty show at Union Transfer last Saturday night. It was an excellent show, and I was a bit surprised. Like most people, I've been listening… Read More
“For Prehistoric Man, Life Itself was the Biggest Gamble”: Exceedingly Rare and Wonderfully Dated In-Room Instructional Video Guide to Casino Games, Hosted by Orson Welles
In this in-room how-to guide to table games for Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, circa 1978, Welles decides that, rather than be reduced by his circumstances, he will elevate the circumstances. Perhaps in… Read More
“The Curfew Tolls” by Miles Burrows
Miles Burrows is the author of A Vulture's Egg (1966). His poems have appeared in British Poetry Since 1945 and Poetry Review. … Read More
Ernest Hilbert Reads from All of You on the Good Earth at the New Jersey Poetry Festival
Ernest Hilbert Reads "Sunrise with Sea Monsters" and "Cover to Cover" from All of You on the Good Earth at the Tenth Annual New Jersey Poetry Festival, May 19, 2013. … Read More
“Ladies of the Roman Empire” by Devon Bixler
Devon Bixler was raised in Blacksburg, Virginia and educated at NYU. He lives with his wife in Los Angeles, where he's pursuing a career as a high school History teacher.… Read More
Quincy R. Lehr Reads “Who Killed Bambi?”
Filmed at Carmine Street Metrics, May 12th, 2013… Read More
“The Blown” by Mark Waldron
“Mark Waldron is the most striking and unusual new voice to have emerged in British poetry for some time.” - John Stammers… Read More
Composer Gabriel Kahane Sets Matthew Zapruder’s Poems from Come On All You Ghosts, Performed by La Jolla Music Society
"Composer Gabriel Kahane blurs the boundaries between popular and classical idioms with 'Come On All You Ghosts,' his setting of three poems by San Francisco-based Matthew Zapruder, for voice and string quartet."… Read More
“Graffiti” by Eric Norris
Eric Norris is the co-author (with Gavin Geoffrey Dillard) of Nocturnal Omissions, available from Sibling Rivalry Press. He is also the author of Cock Sucking (On Mars) and the chapbooks Takaaki… Read More
“The State of Poetry Wants to Know. I Want to Know!” Geoffrey Hill’s Highly Amusing Oxford Professor of Poetry Lectures
The English department at Oxford University has generously posted Hill's recent lectures online as free podcasts. The hour-long lectures are far more lively, amusing, and, at times, riotously funny than one has… Read More
Ernest Hilbert’s Poem “Between Sides Seven and Eight of Die Walkure” in the Summer Issue of Listen! Magazine
Listen: Life with Classical Music is North America’s classical music magazine covering people, places and events; recommendations of recordings, books, and film; and all the many ways our lives are touched by… Read More
“Easter Parade” by Sophie Mayer
“Full of zest, variety and intellectual ambition. There is no such thing as a typical Mayer poem, diversity being her great strength. Dazzling.” - Jane Holland… Read More
“Melhill Feast” by William Barnes
Thanks to David Yezzi, for acquiring and sharing the rare first Thomas Hardy-edited edition of Barnes. … Read More
“In the Trance” by Brenda Hillman
"It is impossible to put boundaries on your words, even if you make a poem. Each word is a maze. So you are full of desire to make a memorable thing and… Read More