Blotting paper

So there is a new anthology of English-language poetry by Indians and I’m in it:

My copy came in the mail via my wonderful father, who, after congratulating me, said, “try as I might the poetry is too high for me.” Aww. I can’t wait to give him a big squeeze when I go home for the winter.

There are lots of people in the anthology that I know and am excited to see and lots of people I don’t know and am excited to discover. I don’t know that the book is available in the States, but it would be nice if it were.

I’ve been sending work out again, post-MFA (which is how I now define my life), and have been lucky to get accepted here and there. Structo Magazine recently included a poem of mine in their ninth issue. I also have a poem in the most recent issue of The New England Review, which is available in print and online. Later in the year, I’ll have three poems in The Iowa Review, and next spring, I have a poem in Blackbird. » Read the rest of this entry «

Books I got* in May

Beverly Dahlen: A-Reading Spicer & eighteen sonnets (2004)

H.D.: Collected Poems: 1912-1944

H.D.: HERmione (1981)

Jorie Graham: Erosion (1983)

» Read the rest of this entry «

Damiano Abeni (Italian)
Shushan Avagyan (Russian)
John Batki (Hungarian)
Susan Bernofsky (German)
Chantal Bilodeau (French)
Daniel Borzutzky (Spanish)
Andry Bragen (Spanish)
Peter Bush (Catalan)
Elliott Colla (Arabic)
Kristin Dykstra (Spanish)
George Economou (Greek)
Moira Egan (Italian)
George Gömöri (Hungarian)
Mari Gömöri (Hungarian)
Aamer Hussein (Urdu)
Faith Jones (Yiddish)
Jennifer Kronovet (Yiddish)
Lee Yew Leong (Chinese)
Alice Xin Liu (Chinese)
Jamie McKendrick (Hungarian)
Sawako Nakayasu (Japanese)
Leonard Ng (Chinese)
Hai-Dang Phan (Vietnamese)
Mani Rao (Sanskrit)
Arza Raza (Urdu)
Tomaž Šalamun (Slovenian)
Ivan Sanders (Hungarian)
Peter Sherwood (Hungarian)
Sim Yee Chiang (Japanese)
Judish Sollosy (Hungarian)
Samuel Solomon (Yiddish)
Sara Suleri Goodyear (Urdu)
Fiona Sze-Lorrain (Chinese)
Michael Thomas Taren (Slovenian)
Marc Vincenz (German)
Tim Wilkinson (Hungarian)
Rachel Wilson-Broyles (Swedish)

– because without them Asymptote wouldn’t have such an extraordinary July issue.

A journal like Asymptote — and anyone half-way interested in what the world (outside of one’s country/culture/language(s)) offers to literature — depends on translators to show us what’s what, and we got showed. Really, this is a great issue and I was squeeing like a schoolgirl through most of the editing process (the rest of of the time I was sighing over boring html, but it’s a very small price to pay).

For newcomers to Asymptote, here’s an introduction: » Read the rest of this entry «

When I see interesting things, I file them away and often never look at them again. This is a shame.

But I found this again: 33 Rules of Poetry for Poets 23 and Under by Kent Johnson.

I fall quite neatly into this category, don’t I?

Ordinarily, I would hate a list of this sort, but I find myself taking a lot of this advice seriously, even if some of it is meant in jest. Here are my favourites:

1. Study grammar. Only by knowing grammar, knowing clearly the parts of speech and sensing their mysterious ways in sentence parts, will you be able to write interesting poetry. For poetry is all about grammar’s interesting ways.

5. Ask yourself constantly: What is the worth of poetry? When you answer, “It is nothing,” you have climbed the first step. Prepare, without presumption, to take the next one.

8. Read Constantine Cavafy’s great poem, “The First Step.” Meditate upon it. » Read the rest of this entry «

I would, somewhat belatedly, like to say that Asymptote, the journal of translation for which I do some editing, has had a new issue out as of April 15. It’s been a crazy three months in between issues, but I think we put out something of quality and of variety too.

Quick plug for my nonfiction section:

There’s an excerpt from a memoir by José Saramago, translated excellently from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. » Read the rest of this entry «

A question that is almost always difficult to answer — and in many ways, I think it should be, that something is wrong if it isn’t — is:

What do you write about?

Maybe:

I write about feelings.

or

I write about birds.

or

I write about feelings and birds. » Read the rest of this entry «

Asymptote, a new journal of translation, launched today.

It was founded and put together by Lee Yew Leong, along with a fascinating group of people (and I unashamedly include myself in this fascinating group : P ).Seriously, though, I’ve been involved for maybe a month as contributing editor and saw some of the crazy work that went on behind the scenes, and as contributing editor contributed some madness, naturally.

» Read the rest of this entry «