American Verse Project is assembling an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry. Most of the archive is made up of 19th century poetry, although a few 18th century and early 20th century texts are included. Notables Include: Edgar Allen Poe, Carl Sandburg, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson (Series [1], [2], [3]), Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), James Russell Lowell. [more inside]
posted by Fizz on Jun 19, 2009 - 5 comments

Oh cow, oh cow, what are you thinking?      Should I leave the gate open?
Are you content?                                     Would you be happy?
Do you yearn?                                         Would you turn feral?

Do you want freedom?                               Oh cow
Greener pastures?                                     Moo cow
A bull?                                                    Run free cow

The Online Dairy Ode Contest was a light-hearted, web-based, sister competition to the James McIntyre Poetry Contest. It was held at irregular intervals from 2001 to 2005. The only criterion for entry was that the poems had to be Dairy Odes; ie about dairy products, cows, or dairying.
posted by carsonb on Jun 16, 2009 - 24 comments

The Cavafy Archive has translations of all of C. P. Cavafy's poems (go here for the Greek) except for the 30 unfinished poems, which have just recently been translated into English for the first time by Daniel Mendelsohn. His translations are reviewed in a lengthy essay by Peter Green in the most recent New Republic. Mendelsohn was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered earlier this week. Late last year Mendelsohn wrote an essay about Cavafy in The New York Review of Books. The Cavafy Archive also has translations of a few prose pieces by Cavafy as well as manuscripts, pictures, translated letters & short texts and a catalog of Cavafy's library.
posted by Kattullus on Jun 9, 2009 - 9 comments

"I want our type to jump, scream, whisper and dance..." Ebon Heath and His Visual Poetry. "When I close my eyes I can see the words of great poets like Rakem or Tupac flying thru the air and dancing with the same physicality my body instinctually feels. My mobiles attempt to create a visual sense of rhythm and flow that is alive, not contained." This interview with Heath breaks down his Stereo.type and Purge projects. [more inside]
posted by netbros on May 30, 2009 - 8 comments

Spenser and the Tradition: English Poetry 1579-1830 is a mammoth database of English poetry and other writings that traces the influence of the great 16th-Century poet Edmund Spenser on English poetry across 250 years. There are roughly 25000 different texts on the site, over 6000 poems from famous classics to obscure ephemera, and further thousands of biographies and commentaries. Since it would take years to read all the material I am happy to say that there is a guide to navigating the database, an overview of its contents, a statistical summary and an essay on tradition and innovation. The immense database, which started life as a pile of index cards, was compiled largely by Virginia Tech Professor David Hill Radcliffe over the course of 17 years.
posted by Kattullus on May 27, 2009 - 11 comments

Shmoop is study guides and teacher resources that help us understand how literature and history and poetry are relevant today. Take for example Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. Get a technical analysis of it's literary devices, explanations of the themes, and audio/video readings of the sonnet.
posted by netbros on May 24, 2009 - 10 comments

400 years ago today, Thomas Thorpe entered into the Stationers' Register a book titled "Shake-Speares Sonnets". However, Clinton Heylin argues that - like Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - the Sonnets were never intended for a wide audience. "In both cases, they were killing time and at the same time dealing with huge personal issues in a private way, which they never conceived of coming out publicly."
posted by Joe Beese on May 20, 2009 - 37 comments

"There is at least one technology in America, however, that is worse now than it was in the early 20th century: the train." Why trains run slower now than they did in the 1920s.
posted by ocherdraco on May 15, 2009 - 103 comments

How to (and how not to) write poetry -- "selections from columns originally published in the Polish newspaper Literary Life. In these columns, famed poet Wislawa Szymborska answered letters from ordinary people who wanted to write poetry. Translated by Clare Cavanagh." Here is her Nobel acceptance speech, where she charmingly imagines a dialogue between herself and Ecclesiastes.
posted by vronsky on May 6, 2009 - 25 comments

Bono's poem Elvis: American David, annotated by professor John Sutherland
posted by fearfulsymmetry on May 6, 2009 - 57 comments

Live Hope Love — Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica.
posted by netbros on May 4, 2009 - 5 comments

[Ezra Pound] worked on and for poetry as others might work on a major scientific discovery or a drawn-out military mission. Thus, as Sieburth reminds us in his introduction to The Pisan Cantos, when, on May 3, 1945, Pound was arrested at his home in the hills above Rapallo, he immediately put a small Chinese dictionary and a copy of the Confucian classics in his pocket. Working as he then was on his Confucian translations, he knew that, wherever the military police were taking him, he would need these books.

British poetry has a mixed day: Carol Ann Duffy looks very much like she's going to be the first ever woman poet laureate. U.A.Fanthorpe sadly won't be there to see her awarded the terse of Canary Wine [more inside]
posted by calico on Apr 30, 2009 - 18 comments

The spoken-word poetry (and music) of Sarah Kay: "B". "Hand Me Downs". "Not Just Another Math Problem". "Scaffolding". [more inside]
posted by dolca on Apr 15, 2009 - 26 comments

"Not until I put them there." David Antin worked in a wide range of innovative modes until landing in the early 1970s on what he calls the talk poem. Antin speaks extemporaneously and then transcribes his talks using only space as punctuation. The implications of positioning these works as poetry are, of course, part of the point.
posted by roll truck roll on Apr 14, 2009 - 15 comments

April 13th is Seamus Heaney's 70th birthday, and to celebrate, the Irish press have honored him in many ways. A Catholic from Northern Ireland, his early poems reflected his upbringing on a farm, but his later poems (and time in the States) spoke powerfully of 'the Troubles.' I thought he deserved a mention in the Blue. [more inside]
posted by dbmcd on Apr 12, 2009 - 13 comments

A group of middle-school-aged self-proclaimed nerds from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, who won the New York City FIRST Lego League Robotics Championship with their motorized robot called Thingamajig are embarking on a trip to the Robotics World Festival in Atlanta. After a lack of funds nearly scuttled their journey, they've been bailed out by British vacuum cleaner exec James Dyson, and have been given the kind of sendoff most young nerds can only dream of: an all-school nerd-cheering pep rally.
posted by ocherdraco on Apr 10, 2009 - 52 comments

Free Verse [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Apr 9, 2009 - 7 comments

Voices and Visions explores -- through interviews, archival footage, and readings -- the lives and works of some of America’s greatest poets. Newsweek called the series "the most ambitious, most expensive and most accomplished series of films ever made about American poetry." Elizabeth Bishop 1::2::3 l T.S. Eliot 1::2::3::4 l Robert Frost 1::2::3 l Wallace Stevens 1::2 l William Carlos Williams 1::2 l Ezra Pound 1 l Langston Hughes 1::2 l Marianne Moore 1::2 l home
posted by vronsky on Apr 7, 2009 - 8 comments

Should you find yourself wandering around the city of Leiden, the Netherlands sometime, you may notice some curious markings on the city's walls.

These Muurgedichten ("Wall Poems") adorn many of the town's streets (clickable map), and many English-language poets are represented: one John Keats, for instance, inside a bookshop; Dylan Thomas, E. E. Cummings, W.B. Yeats, some guy called William Shakespeare, or this ode to Charlie Parker by American William Waring Cuney. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 5, 2009 - 15 comments

Salon has some fun with The poetry of Glenn Beck. Part 2. Part 3.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle on Apr 2, 2009 - 73 comments

Poetry at Tech, a poetry program at Tech University in Georgia, presents readings (on YT) by a number of fine contemporary poets. Some of my favourites: Thomas Lux (pt. 1, 2, 3),  David Kirby (pt. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Tony Hoagland (pt. 1, 2, 3) and Illya Kaminsky. Complete list of videos so far.

posted by troubles on Apr 1, 2009 - 6 comments

April Fools Day, 2009 also means happy 60th birthday to one of my favorite musicians, Gil Scott-Heron (previously). From his popular early works like the heavily referenced "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", "Whitey On The Moon", and "The Bottle", to his continued productions and tours over the decades, he's had a few hurdles, but never stopped. For more on his life and music, here's a great documentary from a few years back (MLYT): pt. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
posted by p3t3 on Mar 31, 2009 - 26 comments

In 1916, Hugo Ball would fulfill his own dadaist manifesto by reciting his own nonsense poetry at the Cabaret Voltaire (not that Cabaret Voltaire), while wearing a Cubist costume or a cylinder with the number 13 covering his face. Ball's poem, Gadji Beri Bimba, inspired the Talking Heads song, I Zimbra, but his most famous poem is Karawane, a pioneering example of sound poetry. Karawane has more conventional avant-garde versions on YouTube, but none is more surreal than the recitation from memory by Marie Osmond (yes, that Marie Osmond) from a 1980s broadcast of Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
posted by jonp72 on Mar 9, 2009 - 21 comments

Irish poet and writer Christopher Nolan died on the 20 Feb. Nolan was born with cerebral palsy, and typed using a 'unicorn stick' attached to his head. Nolan has never spoken, yet his poetry has been compared to that of Joyce, Keats, and Yeats. [more inside]
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth on Mar 2, 2009 - 27 comments

"He was sentenced to death after the military coup in 1980, a few months later he was pardoned but put under house arrest. While under arrest, he began to write a collection of poems; the aim of which was to create portraits of all the people he had ever met in his life" [Maninbo, or Ten Thousand Lives]. To date, 26 volumes from the ongoing collection have been published. Meet Ko Un. Ex-Buddhist Monk and one of South Korea's greatest poets.
posted by vacapinta on Feb 25, 2009 - 6 comments

The Drunken Boat publishes poetry from around the world, translations of poetry, reviews of poetry collections and anthologies, and interviews with well-known poets. The current issue features Cave Canem poets, home for the many voices of African-American poetry and committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African-American poets.
posted by netbros on Feb 22, 2009 - 3 comments

A "singular creature, whose secluded life and remarkable eccentricities have long made her an object of peculiar interest” is described in the 1876 A guide to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. This woman, Nancy Luce (c 1814 to 1890), published books of poems and information about her chickens. Her first book was Poor Little Hearts and her second was A complete edition of the works of Nancy Luce ... containing God's words--Sickness--Poor little hearts--Milk--No comfort--Prayers--Our Savior's golden rule--Hen's names, etc. Here’s part of Poor Little Hearts and here’s Lines composed by Nancy Luce about poor little Ada Queetie and poor little Beauty Linna, both deceased ... . A sad poem – “I hope I never shall have a hen, to set so much by again ... “ is quoted in this account of a visit to her grave. She put up a gravestone (NYT, 1873) to one of her hens, Tweedle Dedel Bebbee Pinky. [more inside]
posted by paduasoy on Feb 21, 2009 - 12 comments

Explore the History of the Ancient Greek World from the Neolithic to the Classical Period. Covering important topics, such as Art and Architecture, Mythology, Wars, Culture and Society, Poetry, Olympics, History Periods, Philosophy, Playwrights, Kings and Rulers of Ancient Greece.
posted by netbros on Feb 21, 2009 - 3 comments

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl is an Icelandic poet. He translates Icelandic poetry into English (I particularly like his versions of Sigfús Daðason), and he has an interesting interview on Icelandic poetry ("Curiously enough, back in the days the nationalists would sometimes write in danish. And writing in a foreign language was more or less seen as the only alternative to literature being a mere hobby until Halldór Laxness came along"). But really this is an elaborate excuse to post a link to Höpöhöpö Böks: Köld öld Böks mjög örg, Ölböl örlög Böks! (Warning: My wife thought the linked video sounded like vomiting.) Via wood s lot. This one goes out to my man Kattullus; hope you can stick around! [more inside]
posted by languagehat on Feb 17, 2009 - 12 comments

Classic Poetry Aloud: free recordings of 427 public domain poems.
posted by Iridic on Feb 16, 2009 - 8 comments

Scene 360 is an online film and arts magazine, profiling and interviewing artists & web designers, filmmakers and writers.
posted by netbros on Feb 14, 2009 - 2 comments

Everyone and his or her uncle has griped about the mediocre official inaugural poems heralding recent new U.S. presidencies. Meanwhile, poets Arielle Greenberg & Rachel Zucker have put together a blog, STARTING TODAY, commissioning a poem a day from many of those they consider the best contemporary poets writing today, documenting in verse life under the new ruling paradigm.
posted by aught on Feb 6, 2009 - 16 comments

Works of Hungarian poet Endre Ady in English translation, and excellent readings and musical settings in Hungarian (particularly those by Latinovits). [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog on Jan 27, 2009 - 6 comments

The sestina is an old poetic form invented by the troubadors; each of the thirty-nine lines ends with one of only six words, which gives the sestina a haunting, constricted feel. You might have read modern examples by Bishop or Auden, or the even more modern "WTF Sestina" by Meghann Marco. But you have probably never read a sestina which explains how to construct a sestina in the language of finite group theory. (.pdf link) Via excellent mathblog God Plays Dice.
posted by escabeche on Jan 20, 2009 - 24 comments

Visual Poetry Today collects various forms of visual poetry, today. It includes Peter Ciccariello, who wraps text around computer-modeled landscapes. [more inside]
posted by mediareport on Jan 20, 2009 - 4 comments

Victor Kahn. Jim Warren. Artie Kornfeld.
posted by Esoquo on Jan 19, 2009 - 12 comments

A small selection of parodic poetry inspired by the Illinois corruption mess. [more inside]
posted by casarkos on Jan 11, 2009 - 10 comments

London-based videographer Jim Clark uses photographs and paintings to create wonderfully disturbing videos of celebrated poets posthumously reading their work.
posted by youarenothere on Jan 9, 2009 - 19 comments

The Princeton Shahnama Project is an "archive of book paintings--commonly known as Persian Miniatures--that were created to illustrate scenes from the Persian national epic, the Shahnama (the Book of Kings). The Shahnama is a poem of some 50,000 couplets that was composed by Abu'l Qasim Firdausi over a period of several decades in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. The core of this archive is a fund of 277 illustrations from five illustrated manuscripts of the Shahnama that are housed in Princeton University's Firestone Library." The site also has the complete Shahnama in the Warner & Warner translation but here's another translation by Helen Zimmern [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Jan 5, 2009 - 5 comments

Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky (re)posted Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" to Slate. Discussion ensued, and became very lively when National Book Award winner Mark Doty observed that the poem contains an overt homage to an earlier poem by Keats. Guggenheim fellow Mark Halliday, MacArthur fellow Jim Powell and Annie Finch chime in. An opportunistic Billy Collins (also a former Poet Laureate & Guggenheim fellow) even showed up, attracted by the discussion of a "bird poem." A fascinating look at some of the finest American poets geeking out over poems that were hits before your mother was born.
posted by eustacescrubb on Jan 2, 2009 - 24 comments

Dylan Thomas, the wonderful Welsh poet, has been mentioned on the blue before. Now the BBC provide a Dylan Thomas Random Poem Generator. Bravo! [more inside]
posted by fcummins on Dec 31, 2008 - 4 comments

Artists' Books Online is a collection by the University of Virginia of artists' books. Artists' books are works of art that take the form of books and are often both text and visual art. Either way, they're awful interesting to look at. Here are some artbooks to get you started: How to Humiliate Your Peeping Tom by Susan Baker, The Word Made Flesh by Johanna Drucker, Life in a Book by Francois Deschamps, A.A.A.R.P. by Clifton Kirkpatrick Meador, opuntia is just another name for a prickly pear by Todd Walker and Black Dog White Bark by Erica Van Horn
posted by Kattullus on Dec 28, 2008 - 7 comments

Eight years nearly to the day after I read about Adrian Henri's death on the Formica table of a service-station cafeteria, another of my favourite poets has left us. Adrian Mitchell, left-wing poet and romantic, 1932 - 2008. [more inside]
posted by mippy on Dec 23, 2008 - 7 comments

Des Imagistes is an online version of Ezra Pound's influential 1914 anthology of Imagist poetry, which includes work by Pound, James Joyce, H. D., and William Carlos Williams. [more inside]
posted by whir on Dec 16, 2008 - 11 comments

The Agrippa Files presents a fairly expansive overview of the original and very rare 1992 art book Agrippa (a book of the dead), a collaboration between artist Dennis Ashbaugh, author William Gibson, and award-winning journalist Kevin Begos, Jr. that presciently explored the ephemeral nature of and decay of memories and information. [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Dec 13, 2008 - 11 comments

The MaxPlanckForschung journal cover gets some extra attention when it tries to be 'cool' and get a Chinese tattoo. MaxPlanckForschung usually publishes fairly esoteric scientific papers, and for a special issue on China, it wanted a nice artistic cover with some Chinese writing on it... little did the editors know that they had just published an ad for a brothel. LOL.
posted by mhh5 on Dec 10, 2008 - 60 comments

Milton turns 400 today. The Morgan Library celebrates by exhibiting the last surviving pages of Paradise Lost manuscript. Just you wait for the movie! [more inside]
posted by spamguy on Dec 9, 2008 - 23 comments

Wear Good Shoes : Advice for Young Photographers. [via] [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon on Dec 5, 2008 - 15 comments

The poet is a radio. The poet is a liar. The poet is a counterpunching radio. Jack Spicer was a poet, linguist, & early gay rights activist. For a long time, his poetry was out of print and difficult to find, but now Wesleyan University Press has (finally!) published his collected poems. The book takes its title from Spicer’s last words: My Vocabulary Did This to Me. [more inside]
posted by Hypocrite_Lecteur on Dec 3, 2008 - 8 comments