A Poetry Daily Prose Feature:
A "make-believe job" at the Saturday Review of Literature brings a young, aspiring writer to the verge of literary glory in Jocelyn W. Knowles's "My Interview with W. H. Auden," this week's prose feature from the Fall issue of Michigan Quarterly Review: "I had a feeling I was not among friends but did not know what to make of it. Was it my earlier disarray? My youth? Something in my appearance? My voice? I had scarcely spoken. Perhaps Auden, who was new to America, had discovered too late the magazine was not the publication he thought it. There was a reputable one in London with a similar name. Kallman was busy with his cigarette. One, half-smoked, lay sputtering on his soup plate in bitter, acrid last gasps. Should I ask him to put it out?"
American Life in Poetry:
Ted Kooser presents a poem by Robert Wrigley. (American Life in Poetry)
National Book Awards announced:
Mark Doty honored in the poetry category for Fire to Fire. (The New York Times)
• From the Poetry Daily archive and Fire to Fire: Three Poems
"He is intensely present within these pages:"
Bel Mooney looks into Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney and finds a "true meeting of minds—the erudition and acute sensibility of the questions matched by Heaney's customary virtuoso display of knowledge, insight, and grievous... honesty." (The Times)
Donald Finkel, 79:
An obituary. (Saint Louis Beacon)
Carol Rumens: Poem of the Week:
Carol Rumens introduces a poem by Andrew Marvell. (Guardian)
Love and war:
Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa is reviewed by Jordan Davis. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Tracing Seamus Heaney:
Sean O'Hagan reviews Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, by Dennis O'Driscoll. (Guardian)
"Celebrity and greatness"
Christina Patterson recounts an evening of conversation between Seamus Heaney and Dennis O'Driscoll. (The Independent)
"'Sublime disgrace' of exile..."
John McAuliffe reviews Life on Earth by Derek Mahon. (Irish Times)
Poet's Choice:
Mary Karr introduces poems by Kabir, translated by Robert Bly. (The Washington Post)
"Paragon of fun"
George, Being George: George Plimpton’s Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals — and a Few Unappreciative Observers, edited by Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., reviewed by Graydon Carter. (The New York Times)
Gossip turned myth:
The Letters of Ted Hughes, edited by Christopher Reid, reviewed by David Orr. (The New York Times)
Impending catastrophe:
Adam Newey is perplexed by Glyn Maxwell's Hide Now. (Guardian)
• "Fire Came" from Hide Now (Poetry Daily's archive).
Recently Arrived Titles
These just in... Highlighted titles may be purchased from Poetry Daily / Amazon.com. A complete
list of all books and journals recently received at Poetry Daily is also available.
Recent Anthologies, etc.
- The Best American Poetry 2008, ed. Charles Wright and David Lehman (Scribner)
- Lyric Powers, Robert von Hallberg
- White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Brenda Wineapple (Alfred A. Knopf)
- Best Thought, Worst Thought: On Art, Sex, Work and Death, Don Paterson (Graywolf Press)
- 100 Essential Modern Poems by Women, ed. Joseph Parisi and Kathleen Welton (Ivan R. Dee, Publisher)
- The Monster Loves His Labyrinth: Notebooks, Charles Simic (Ausable Press)
- Quote Poet Unquote: Contemporary Quotations on Poets and Poetry, ed. Dennis O'Driscoll (Copper Canyon Press)
- The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology, ed. Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.)
- The Art of the Poetic Line, James Longenbach (Graywolf Press)
- The Art of Attention: A Poet's Eye, Donald Revell (Graywolf Press)
- The Modern Element: Essays on Contemporary Poetry, Adam Kirsch (Norton)
- Poetry Daily Essentials 2007, Diane Boller, Don Selby, ed.s (Sourcebooks)
Past Features:
Original
articles, interviews, selections from special collections and journal issues, and more are available in the Archives.
