Nobel Winner Walcott Protests

Nobel Prize-winning author Derek Walcott is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore. According to Caribbean Book Blog:


If there’s one thing that pisses off Derek Walcott, it’s the Caribbean governments’ blatant disregard for the development of the literary arts and their seeming indifference to the plight of the region’s writers and artistes.
This isn’t a new theme for Walcott. He

A Poetic Birthday

In addition to today being the birthday of the very Dewey who organized the library and the anniversary of the day in 1884 when Mark Twain first published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Writer’s Almanac lets us know that it is also the day of birth of a whole lot of poetic power.

Most notable, of course, is the Belle of Amherst, Emily Dickinson, who was born on this date in 1830. From

Holiday Gift Guide: Jack Kerouac Collected Poems

Looking over our shoulders, it’s easy to underestimate the poetic art of Jack Kerouac. We remember little beyond On the Road, one of the defining works of the Beat Generation. The book celebrated a life of drugs and jazz on the road in an elegant stream of consciousness screed. Helping the idea that there was little to the writer beyond The Road is the fact that Kerouac himself died too young. He

Irish President’s Poems Slammed

When a critic says that a poet’s work is “a crime against literature,” you know punches are not being pulled. But when it turns out that the poet in question just happens to be the president of your country, something larger might be at play. In the Irish Independent, books editor John Spain writes:BEING President is no protection from the critics. In one of the most scathing reviews ever

Poet Ruth Stone Dead at 96

Celebrated poet Ruth Stone died at home of natural causes in Ripton, Vermont, on November 19th. Born in June of 1915, Stone was 96 when she died. From The Huffington Post by way of AP:Widowed in her 40s and little known for years after, Ruth Stone became one of the country's most honored poets in her 80s and 90s, winning the National Book Award in 2002 for "In the Next Galaxy" and being named a

Holiday Gift Guide: The Illiad by Homer translated by Stephen Mitchell

If high school literary abuse makes the very mention of anything by Homer cause your eyes to roll up into your head, you’re in for a treat. In this new translation of The Illiad (Free Press) author Stephen Mitchell starts things off on a wonderful note. “We return to the Illiad because it is one of the monuments of our own magnificence. Its poetry lifts even the most devastating human events into

Holiday Gift Guide: The Collected Poems of Patrick Lane by Patrick Lane

If the person on your list has a particular interest in Canadian poetry, The Collected Poems of Patrick Lane (Harbour) is a handsome and complete collection.For many years considered by many to be one of his country’s leading poets, Patrick Lane was born in Nelson, British Columbia and currently lives in Victoria. In the time between he has lived many places all over North and South America. And