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Archive for the ‘poetry’ Category

Stephen King in Playboy!

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Image: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

No need to avert your eyes. Stephen King’s appearance in this month’s edition of Playboy is of a literary rather than an anatomical nature.

Departing from his traditional role as an author, King appears as a poet with his work The Bone Church.

Told by a man in the bar, the poem is the tale of a doomed jungle expedition.

If you want to hear, buy me another drink.
(Ah, this is slop—slop, I tell you—but never mind; what isn’t?)
There were thirty-two of us went into that greensore
and only three who rose above it.
We were thirty days in the green, and only one of us came out.
Three rose above the green, three made it to the top:

It’s a good month for King fans on the whole. In addition to the Playboy poem, New Yorker’s November 9 issue features Premium Harmony, a new short story by the bestselling author and King’s latest novel, Under the Dome - a 900-page epic - will be published on November 10.

Posted in author, books, poetry, thrillers | No Comments »

Walt Whitman in Blue Jeans (Ad)

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Thanks to The Book Bench blog for tipping me off on this one.

Levi’s came out with a rather funky commercial that includes a recitation of Walt Whitman’s Pioneers! O Pioneers!. See for yourself:

Posted in poetry | No Comments »

The Basketball Diaries Author Jim Carroll Dies

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Jim Carroll, punk-rock poet and musician who is also well-known for his biography of his wild and drug filled teen years, The Basketball Diaries, died on Friday of a heart attack. He was 60 years old.

Carroll’s poetry was praised by icons of the Beat Generation including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

There will always be a poem
I will climb on top of it and come
In and out of time,
Cocking my head to the side slightly,
As I finish shaking, melting then
Into its body, its soft skin
–Jim Carroll, “Poem”
from Void of Course (1998)

Posted in author, biography, news, poetry | No Comments »

Supermarket hires poets

Friday, August 28th, 2009

A supermarket in the UK, Morrisons to be exact, has hired three poets to help them promote their food produce. These ‘food laureates’ - Ian McMillan, John Mole and Peter Sansom - are writing a series of poems about how to prepare different recipes.

I couldn’t see Ted Hughes or W.H. Auden doing this.

Posted in news, odd, poetry | No Comments »

World’s first giant knitted poem

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Here’s another bonkers story (which I also actually like very much). More than 800 nutters, I mean knitters, are knitting the world’s first giant knitted poem reports The Guardian. This is the poem they are knitting.

How To Knit A Poem by Gwyneth Lewis

The whole thing starts with a single knot
and needles. A word and pen. Tie a loop
in nothing. Look at it. Cast on, repeat

the procedure till you have a line
that you can work with.
It’s a pattern made of relation alone,

my patience, my rhythm, till empty bights
create a fabric that can be worn,
if you’re lucky and practised. It’s never too late

to pick up dropped stitches, each hole a clue
to something that might be bothering you,
though I link mine with ribbons and pretend

I meant them to happen. I make a net
of meaning that I carry round
portable, to work on sound

in trains and terrible waiting rooms.
It’s thought in action. It redeems
odd corners of disposable time,

making them fashion. It’s the kind of work
that keeps you together. The neck’s too tight,
but tell me honestly: How do I look?

Posted in art, author, celebration, news, odd, poetry | No Comments »

Textbook poetry - AbeBooks’ camcorder contest hots up

Friday, August 7th, 2009

camcorder-prize1 AbeBooks.com is currently running a textbook poetry contest with a super sexy high definition camcorder up for grabs. After just a week, we have received many entries - we’ll be posting selection of the poems at regular intervals. Thanks to everyone who has entered so far. I’m impressed - North America’s students are making a huge effort with poems from the heart, the wallet, and some other places too.

Shelly at University of North Dakota

Cheap textbooks are the bomb!
I get mine at AbeBooks.com

Mesceille at Merritt College

“An Ode to Abe”

Cheap textbooks are my thing
With the leftover savings
I can buy some bling
One for the money
Two for the show
Three to get ready
Now don’t be slow
My fingers are quick
As I look up the name
But nobody’s better
Than AbeBooks at this game
So get on your starter
Don’t be shy
Time to search for books
And, buy buy buy
AbeBooks, hear my shout
You’re the best
Day in, day out.

Jim at University of St. Thomas

I never give new textbooks
Second looks.
I always buy used textbooks
From AbeBooks.

Madeline at Bethel University

I love cheap textbooks.
They are the best deal for me,
Because I am poor.

Vicki at Western New Mexico University

Cheap textbooks
new, used
search, click, buy
“Never pay full price.”
AbeBooks.com

Bo at University of Ottawa

I got it cheap
I got it right,
I got it from AbeBooks site!

Courtney from Yale

“The Budget meets The Two-Book Reading List”

Two texts on linguistics,
The theory and practice:
One research, the other one doctrinal.
Six-hundred pages
On syntax and form
(I learned later those chapters were optional.)

On the book jacket flap
Of the hardcover back,
The ISBN seems innocuous.
But the barcode below
Stands for money we owe,
And those numbers may come as a shock to us.

Ninety-five dollars!
Two Hundred! Then three!
These pages cost more than they should.
They’re not golden-dusted;
They’re not jewel-encrusted;
They’re simply cloth binding on wood.

I don’t undervalue
The knowledge, the balm,
For my intellect and for my psyche
That these books will impart—
Still, I’d relish that art
If a re-read were slightly more likely.

Perhaps they’ll be referenced,
Sporadically paged,
Perhaps they’ll look smart on my shelf.
But if stores were confounded,
Cheap textbooks abounded,
I’d buy more than one for myself.

Kimberly at Santa Monica College

Buying textbooks every semester was oh so depressing.
I’d rather spend the money on shoes, jewelry, and pretty dresses.
My poor innocent debit card used to cringe and whimper in fear, when I
registered for classes because it knew book buying time was near.
The school book store was a joke, everything priced so high.
Even a used textbook cost one hundred dollars and it was from 1985!

Then I had a bright idea to see what I can find online, and I stumbled
upon AbeBooks.com, and man what a find!
They had every textbook I needed for literally half the price,
The website was student friendly and I got my books in no time.
I no longer have to resort to things like selling my blood, or a
kidney, cause’ thanks to AbeBooks.com from now on it’s cheap textbooks for me.
I’ve told all my classmates that their days of ramen noodles are gone,
Because we can all buy cheap textbooks at AbeBooks.com

Posted in books, poetry, textbooks | No Comments »

Write some textbook poetry & win a Flip MinoHD Camcorder

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

camcorder-prize Calling all penniless, broke and skint students! It’s back-to-school season again and that means textbook shopping.

Just for you student types, AbeBooks has a brand new contest to give away a super sexy Flip MinoHD Camcorder - the world’s smallest high definition camcorder apparently. And all you have to do to enter is write some poetry about buying textbooks (the joy of using Abebooks for finding the cheapest books, the agony of lines and high prices from other places).

The best piece of poetry will win - as simple as that. Be creative, be funny. Make us smile. Good luck. It could be a limerick, or haiku, an elegy - we don’t care as long it’s a good read.

Full details here.

Posted in AbeBooks, poetry, textbooks, writing | No Comments »

Slamming Open the Door poetry book

Friday, July 31st, 2009

NPR’s Fresh Air just featured Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno’s collection of poems, Slamming Open the Door, which was published earlier this year. The book concerns her life after the murder of her daughter, Leidy, who was killed in her apartment six years ago. She had been strangled to death.

Posted in author, books, family, life, poetry | No Comments »

Authors Push to Save Literary Landmark

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Back in April, we blogged the a-frame cottage of late Canadian poet, Al Purdy being under threat.

Now British authors have joined forces with members of the Canada Cuba Literary Alliance (CCLA) in an attempt to save the Roblin Lake (Ontario) residence.

“We really want to preserve this building for its literary iconic value,” said Richard Grove, president of the CCLA and owner of Hidden Brook Press, which will publish the charitable anthology ‘And Left a Place to Stand On: Poems and essays on Al Purdy‘. Proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Al Purdy A-Frame Trust, a charity collecting funds to purchase the cottage with the intent of turning it into a writer’s retreat.

So we built a house, my wife and I
our house at a backwater puddle of a lake
near Ameliasburg, Ont.
–Al Purdy “In Search of Owen Roblin”

For more information on the Al Purdy A-frame Project see our Poet’s Hideaway: Saving Al Purdy’s A-Frame feature.

Posted in Canada, author, poetry | No Comments »

Charles Bukowski letter to Ann Menebroker sells for $1,500

Friday, June 26th, 2009

We sold a typed Charles Bukowski letter earlier this week for $1,500. It’s a great letter, from the poet to Ann Menebroker, another poet and long-time friend.

Hello Ann—
Hold yourself together, the glue may arrive to keep you and Wayne going.
Of course I’d like to see you but I can promise you nothing–
neither sex or love or maybe not even understanding. But
I would like to see you. We could have some drinks and lounge
about and you could stay as long as you wished. Things are
quiet here. People do come by but not too often. I have no
strong attachments. There is one lady who says, “Bukowski,
I don’t see why you don’t love me. I’m a beautiful woman.”
“Sorry,” I tell her, “I’ve got the lever turned to OFF.”
I don’t know if I ever want to get back into a strong
affair again. I am too emotional, I am too sentimental; when
when the games begin–the hard games men and women play against each other, I am lost.
Well, the book finally came out, it’s a fat one, SELECTED POEMS,
and my name’s on the cover so I suppose that I wrote them.
Try to stay well and don’t feel too bad, or if you do
feel too bad, remember it happens to all of us. Hold, dear,
hold to the fucking walls, and soon you’ll be laughing, you’ll
be thinking, how did I ever let it get hold of me like that?
All we need is time–to straighten out, feel better, and then
make the same mistake all over again.
love, BUK

Life coaching - Bukowski-style.

Posted in AbeBooks, poetry, writing | No Comments »

Ruth Padel can’t spell

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

The Guardian prints the email that disgraced poet Ruth Padel sent to the Evening Standard newspaper about Derek Walcott’s sexual harassment allegation. If you’re going to do some smearing, at least get your spelling correct.

Posted in news, poetry | 2 Comments »

Reviving British War Poetry

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Simon Armitage - photo by Jonty Wilde British poet, Simon Armitage told The Guardian newspaper that the BBC is in negotiations with the Ministry of Defence regarding a project that would take him to Afghanistan. Documenting the poet’s visit, the BBC hopes to revive Britain’s legacy of war poetry.

Armitage’s 2008 collection The Not Dead focuses on soldiers who fought in the Gulf War, Bosnia and Malaysia but he didn’t witness the fighting first-hand.

Poetry rumpus - Padel quits after smear accusation

Monday, May 25th, 2009

I really couldn’t give a fig who is the Oxford University professor of poetry but this article was worth reading. Campaign managers! A smear campaign! It all makes the poetry world look very bad.

And then Ruth Padel resigns.

Posted in news, poetry | No Comments »

Shakespeare’s sonnets at 400

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Boyd Tonkin in the Independent writes about Shakespeare’s sonnets being 400 years old. Yesterday, some bloke on NPR was going on about how the sonnets were written by the Bard because he loved some young lord. Then they were stolen by a rogue publisher who printed them without permission. I know copyright laws weren’t truly effective in the Elizabethan times but surely Shakespeare could have had this bloke taken down a dark alley to meet a sharp rapier.

Posted in author, books, history, poetry | No Comments »

Carol Ann Duffy interview

Monday, May 4th, 2009

I was much wiser about Britain’s new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, after reading this profile of her in The Independent.

Posted in author, interview, poetry | No Comments »

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