The App Boom Hits Publishing

Check out my article on how mobile phone apps are changing the publishing business, in today's PW.

albums in heavy rotation

FOLK ART by Joe Lovano Us Five
SOLAS by Masada Quintet feat. Joe Lovano
FROM A COMPOUND EYE by Robert Pollard
MOON: LIVE by Robert Pollard

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

A Profile of Novelist Chandler Burr

Here's my profile of Chandler Burr, author of YOU OR SOMEONE LIKE YOU, a new novel I'm very excited about: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6661549.html

Twitter and Publishing

A story I wrote for Publishers Weekly about how Twitter is changing the publishing business.

laid off

I was laid off from PW but am still editing PW's poetry section and doing a hell of a lot of freelance reviewing.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Me on FSG's Poetry Month Blog

FSG's Alyson Sinclair interviewed me for the Farrar, Strauss & Giroux poetry month blog about my work as poetry editor at PW and on the board of the NBCC.

Daniel Mendelson's Cavafy

I'm very excited about this book.  See why:

Che Fece…Il Gran Rifiuto

 

For certain people there comes a day
when they are called upon to say the great Yes
or the great No.  It’s clear at once who has
the Yes within him at the ready, which he will say

as he advances in honor, in great self-belief.
He who refuses has no second thoughts. Asked
again, he would repeat the No.  And nonetheless
that No—so right—defeats him all his life.

                        --C.P. Cavafy, trans. by Daniel Mendelsohn

A Profile of Poet-Critic Stephen Burt

Poet-critic Stephen Burt has a new book of essays, Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry. I wrote a profile about him and the book for my annual National Poetry Month roundup in Time Out New York. There are also three tiny reviews of new poetry books by Rae Armantrout, Matthew Dickman and Sasha Steensen.

Albums in Heavy Rotation

INNER URGE, Joe Henderson, Blue Note, 1964
COMPASS, Joshua Redman. Nonesuch, 2009
BACK EAST, Joshua Redman. Nonesuch, 2007
WAY OUT WEST, Sonny Rollins, Fantasy, 195?
HOLD TIME, M. Ward, Merge, 2009
CONNER OBERST, Conner Oberst, Merge, 2008
FOR ALL I CARE, The Bad Plus, Do The Math, 2008
PROG, The Bad Plus, Do The Math, 2007
KICKING TELEVISION:LIVE IN CHICAGO, Wilco, Nonesuch, 2006?

Me on the NBCC

My term on the board of the National Book Critics Circle begins today. I'm very excited. I was also elected VP in charge of membership, so if you want to join, which you really ought to do, you'll be dealing with me.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

jazz

I've been listening to an obsene amount of jazz lately, just downloading like mad--Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman, Paul Motian, The Bad Plus, Joe Lovano, Chris Speed, Coung Vu, Jordi Rossy, Chris Cheek--and trying to write about it.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

listening

I tend to alternate between exclusively instrumental and lyric-having music. On a jazz jag now. I love how jazz is all about moments. Even the albums aren't meant to be big deals in themselves--not like rock albums. They're just records of events, to be taken however a listener wants.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

I've become really interested lately in the idea of blogger as a way to communicate with a smeall, predefined group of people--blogs for classes or 4 friends that want to share some particular kind of information.  In that situation, the blog becomes a kind of table, and everyone puts their stuff on it and people can look and comment if and whenever they want to.

Video of My University of Chicago Reading

This is me reading at U of Chicago on 2.18.09. I'm SO HAIRY.

Two More Books I'm Excited About

PRESENT IMPERFECT by Suzanne Buffam

THE NEST, SWIFT PASSARINE by Dan Beachy-Quick (Tupelo, April 2009)
-I love DBQ's first book, NORTH TRUE, SOUTH BRIGHT, but couldn't quick follow him on the two books about Moby Dick, nor on the last book of poems for Tupelo, but I think I'm back on board with this one.

April

Back in New York.  Had a wonderful time in Chicago...

I'm buried in poetry books.  Will someone please explain to me why it helps for all poetry to be PUBLISHED in april?  Why can't publishers just promote that month?  ugh.

me in Chicago

The week after awp I find myself in Chicago doing a guest poet gig at u of Chicago. I miss being at a university--makes me feel safe the way hiding I'm a shrub did when I was little.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Me on Starting Today: Poems for Obama's First 100 Days

Last Wednesday was my day on this amazing blog curated by Rachel Zucker and Arielle Greenberg. They assigned a poet to write a poem for each of Obama's first 100 days in office. Here's my poem. I've been writing lots of poems shaped and rhymed like this lately.

New or Forthcoming Books I'm Excited About

POETRY

Most are pubbing--you guessed it!--April. Though I bet some were made available early for AWP, where I was not this year.

As If by James Galvin (Copper Canyon, 2009)
-haven't seen a galley of this yet, but I've liked the poems I've seen in mags.

Rising by Farrah Field (Four Way, 2009)
-Farrah is a good friend and a blazing poet.

The End of the West by Michael Dickman (Copper Canyon, 2009)

It is Daylight by Arda Collins (Yale, 2009)

The Plum-Stone Game by Kathleen Jesme (Ahsahta, 2009)

Transcendental Studies by Keith Waldrop (U of California, 2009)

Chronic by D.A. Powell (Graywolf, 2009. Just released)

Collected Poems and Unfinished Poems of C.P. Cavafy, trans. by Daniel Mendelsohn (Knopf, 2009--March)

PROSE

The Way Through Doors: A Novel by Jesse Ball (Vintage, 2009)

Close Calls with Nonsense by Stephen Burt (Graywolf, 2009)

The Winter Sun by Fanny Howe (Graywolf, 2009)

Brenda Nominated for NBCC Award

Brenda Shaughnessy, who is, among many other things, my wife, was nominated for the 2008 Nataional Book Critics Circle Award for her second book, Human Dark with Sugar (Copper Canyon, 2008). I'm very excited and I hope you'll all cross your fingers for her.

Just to keep the record straight--I was recently elected to the board of the NBCC, but my term does not start until March 2009, after Brenda's award is decided.

Posting

So I've been a bad blogger.  How many times have I said so on my blog over the last several years.  But I'm going to try something new.  Thanks to a widget in the new iWeb, I've been able to put this blog's RSS feed on the home page of my website.  I'm going to try to use this as a space to post news, as such, and musings when I have them.  

"Ultimately Justice Directs Them" selected for Best American Poetry 2009

I'm very excited and honored to report that guest editor David Wagoner has selected my poem, "Ultimately Justice Directs Them," first published at Notell Motel, for Best American Poetry 2009, to be published by Scribner in September.

Click here for an interview Notell did with me.

Thank you Notell Motel, and Davids Wagoner and Lehman.