5-4-Fri: Poetry-related Stuff

Poetry is the goodness. This Friday, you are treated to five kinds of cool poetry-related content. Alors:

1 - The Poet Laureate. Best. Job. Ever. Annual honorific position with few responsibilities and TONS of street cred in nerdy English circles. My fave living poet is the current, but woefully unraimented, Laureate.

2 - Poet's House. My pal Alison gave me a membership here for my birthday one year and, even though it is far away in NYC, I have kept it up ever since. Congratulations to Lee Briccetti--a poet herself--for making this library cum movement such a success.

3 - Top 500 Poems. Wild Bill Harmon of "No I Won't Sanction Your Dopey Thesis Idea" fame edited this groovy compendium. Waaaay to go, Bill.

4 - Best American Poetry. Series editor David Lehman works with a new editor each year to provide a great guide to the best in American poems. An affordable way to keep up with the happenings.

5 - Norton Anthology. An oldie but a goodie. Impossibly thin vellum paper. Jillions of poems. Used to be two massive volumes. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Buy it/them (or dig them out of the old college boxes).

PS - Want to hear the "raiment" joke? Download the audio file of Kae Ryan's November 1, 2008 reading at the Library of Congress. Oh, and "Please Read the Letter" by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant is also the goodness; now playing on iTunes.

Excellent Quotes: Say Uncle

This past week I attended the inaugural reading of the Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan. She is my favorite living poet and she turns out to be a funny, funny human as well as a master craftsman. During her reading, Ryan included, "That Will to Divest":

"Action creates
a taste
for itself.
Meaning: once
you've swept
the shelves
of spoons
and plates
you kept
for guests,
it gets harder
not to also
simplify the larder,
not to dismiss
rooms, not to
divest yourself
of all the chairs
but one, not
to test what
singleness can bear,
once you've begun."
--Ryan, Kay. Say Uncle. New York (NY): Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2000. P. 17.

PS - I opened the door to the Madison Building for Ryan as she was on her way in to the event; woefully, she didn't recognize me, the Middle Manager Laureate. Oh, and Rybyn Hitchcock's "Underground Sun" is fun; now playing on iTunes.