Blair is gone

Detroit poet David Blair has passed away. I don't have any details as of yet, but I do know that there's a big hole in the world now. He was a friend to many people and a vibrant part of Detroit's poetry community. He will be dearly missed.

Maybe alpha male baboons need to do some yoga

"Fighting off underlings, pursuing females and maintaining one's social status appear to be more stressful for alpha male baboons than researchers had anticipated."

What? Really? That sound like a cake walk to anybody?

"Tea Party, meet your T. S. Eliot."

Wingnut Camper Art Project Shares How-To Secrets For Sexing Obama

Free Neko Case show at the Poetry Foundation Open House

If I was going to be in Chicago June 25 this is definitely where I'd be.

I wish jungle exploration was really like this

Buttersafe – "Exploring the Jungle."

Megan Levad is not a drunken slut

But she is my friend and an awesome poet. Her poem "I’m more the drunken slut kind of feminist, or A Treatise on Political Philosophy at the Apex of American Empire" is online at Granta.com along with an awesome picture of Ms. Levad herself. Hooray, Megan!

Charles Wright on PBS

"I used to imagine...that language could lead us inexplicably to grace as though it were geographical." - Charles Wright

Be submissive

Poet Karyna McGlynn offers some really good tips for submitting your stuff. Read and follow. I was lucky enough to be in the same MFA program with her and she's a really awesome poet. She's also been published pretty much everywhere, so this lady knows what she's talking about.

Jane Goodall books for kids

I love Jane Goodall. I really can't think of a better hero for a kids' book, which makes me very happy about Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell and The Watcher by Jeanette Winter.

The video below, in which McDonnell says about Goodall, "She has the mind of a scientist but the heart of a poet," is a good intro to both books. You should buy them for me.

The Onion understands Jim Morrison

The Onion article "Jim Morrison Foundation Awards $50,000 Grant To Little Shit Who Thinks He's A Poet" pretty much sums up how I feel about Jim Morrison the "poet."

Poet leads protests over drug cartel violence

After his son was killed, poet Javier Sicilia became a leader in the protest movement against drug cartel violence in Mexico. From the BBC:

For Mr Sicilia, the conflict has reached a level that requires a more comprehensive approach to the issue - one which includes the commitment of all Mexicans.

"We need a national pact because this is an emergency, and we have to rebuild the tissue of this nation - if we do not, we are going to enter hell."

As for his poetry, Mr Sicilia has decided to silence his voice.

His last poem was dedicated to his son, and was written just hours after the violent murder.

"Poetry does not exist in me anymore," it ends.

Chimps on film

Wait, what? I have to wait a year to see this? The countdown begins...

Via Videogum.

Kay Ryan, Pulitzer poet

She's a winner. Someday I will read this book.

Rick Santorum breaks up with Langston Hughes

To be fair, Santorum didn't even know they were together. From the Union Leader:

Santorum by and large stayed on message but was tripped up a bit when a student asked him if he knew that the choice of his slogan, "Fighting to make America America again," was borrowed from the "pro-union poem by the gay poet Langston Hughes."

"No I had nothing to do with that," Santorum said. "I didn't know that. And the folks who worked on that slogan for me didn't inform me that it came from that, if it in fact came from that."

The student, whose name was not immediately available, was referring to the poem "Let America Be America Again." When asked a short time later what the campaign slogan meant to him, Santorum said, "well, I'm not too sure that's my campaign slogan, I think it's on a web site."

It was also printed on the campaign literature handed out before the speech.

Ha. "I think it's on a web site." Moron.

One web site you can find it on is The Academy of American Poets. No doubt lines like these really speak to Santorum: "I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. / I am the red man driven from the land, / I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- / And finding only the same old stupid plan / Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak."

"Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes stands against everything Santorum stands for. A commenter on the Union Leader web site said the inclusion of the "gotcha" Hughes question and Santorum's stammering answer was evidence of biased journalism. I disagree. I think it's pretty relevant when an anti-gay, anti-union politician from a party that has no qualms against using racism to their political advantage is using a slogan lifted from a liberal gay poet. I know that Santorum has a Google problem and all, but seriously? No one on his campaign thought to Google the campaign slogan they chose? Dumb.

Via Salon.

Voices in their heads

David Orr in the New York Times on younger poets "finding their voices" with Matthew Zapruder and Rachel Wetzsteon as examples.

"[I]t’s not really a matter of 'divine prompting'; rather, a poet arrives at a style through the same combination of staggering labor and jolts of luck that most complex activities depend on."