The Poet's Pulpit

Crime and Publishing: The Story of Jack Abbott and Norman Mailer - Los Angeles Review of Books

JULY 23, 2017<p>ON A STEAMY Friday evening in July 1981, Jack Abbott went out with two female friends. Abbott had been released from prison six weeks …

Rare work of poetry by J.R.R. Tolkien to be auctioned at Tennants of Leyburn

TOLKIEN fans have the chance to snap up an extremely rare piece of the author’s work which is expected to attract international attention.

How Vancouver's Georgia Straight became a 'hippie newspaper'

Arts and entertainment weekly publication has been ruffling feathers at city hall since its first issue<p>The inaugural issue of the Georgia Straight …

Shelf life

<i>Is there a book you return to again and again, a work that would make life on a desert island bearable? Each weekend, until Labour Day, Globe writers will share their go-to tomes – be it novel, poetry collection, cookbook – and why the world is just a little better for them.</i><p>I’ve been a Baltimore …

Collections of poems, city-life stories offer window to soul-searching

Print<p><b>nipe wanin: my way back</b><p>By Mika Lafond, Thistledown Press, $20<p><b>GLASS BEADS</b><p>By Dawn Dumont, Thistledown Press, $20<p>Mika Lafond’s first collection of …

Worcester poet Dan Lewis dies

WORCESTER — Dan Lewis had already designed the broadside for the award of the 2017 Stanley Kunitz Medal to Carle Johnson that will take place July 27 …

Fukushima poet’s tweets win French literary award：The Asahi Shimbun

A series of verses posted on Twitter by a high school teacher over the two months following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has won a French …

Immigrant Poets Celebrate Emma Lazarus' Birthday with Tributes to 'The New Colossus'

When Emma Lazarus wrote “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” she had no idea it would eventually emblazon …

A Prisoner’s Only Writing Machine

Kenneth Foster, Jr., became a writer on death row. When he was nineteen, he drove three friends to two armed robberies in San Antonio, Texas; late that night, one of the friends shot and killed a man. Foster was in the car, approximately eighty feet away, but, under the Texas Law of Parties, he was …

22 Facts About Ernest Hemingway

<i>Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.</i><p>There is little …

Raining Poetry Project to make a splash in downtown Sudbury

Around 10 poems will be painted on sidewalks using biodegradable paint that only shows up when wet<p>While most people are hoping for clear skies this …

A guide to writing prizes for Canadians

Watch: A Visit to Charles Bukowski’s Grave

Charles Bukowski is buried at Green Hills Memorial Park, at 27501 S Western Ave, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. Bukowski died on March 9, 1994 from …

The rage and rebellion of the Detroit riots, captured in one poem

Policemen arrest black suspects in Detroit on July 25, 1967 during riots that erupted in Detroit following a police operation. Credit: AFP/Getty …

Cuban Poetry Festival Slams US Blockade and Imperialism

Cuba hosted its First Itinerant Poetry Festival of Our Americas, culminating this weekend with participants reciting poems that condemned unprovoked …

The Mysteries of John Ashbery

“I have a natural horror of letting people see how my mind works,” a 23-year-old John Ashbery wrote to the painter Jane Freilicher in 1950. It’s not …

Marking the Death of John Coltrane, Through the Poetry of Amiri Baraka

John Coltrane died 50 years ago today, at the tragic age of 40. The shock of his death was seismic, for a jazz community still growing accustomed to …

10 Famous Book Hoarders

I have a hard time getting rid of books, and if you’re reading this space, you probably do too. As Summer Brennan put it, “what kind of degenerate …

Prairie slam poets descend on Saskatchewan's Festival of Words

One offers this advice for aspiring poets: 'Just pick up a pen and start writing'<p>Omar Farah remembers he was in grade 11 when he wrote and performed …

Writers and their Typewriters

Richard Wright and his Royal Arrow<p>The link between writer and typewriter is often an intimate one that lasts for decades.<br>Here are some favorite …

Thoreau’s Wilderness Legacy, Beyond the Shores of Walden Pond

On April 23, 1851, Henry David Thoreau spoke at the Concord Lyceum about the interrelationship of God, man and nature. It was the opening salvo of the modern American conservation movement. Equating sauntering with absolute freedom, Thoreau, whose “Walden” would be published three years later, …

What I think: Paul Muldoon

<i>The son of a market gardener and a schoolteacher, Paul Muldoon grew up</i> <i>near a village called The Moy on the border of Counties Armagh and Tyrone,</i> …

Hunter S. Thompson wouldn’t remove his convertible after John Oates bought his Colorado cabin

John Oates’ Woody Creek ranch just outside of Aspen started off as a small, rundown cabin, the remnants of a house that burned down years before.The …

Fiction Book Review: Half-Light: Collected Poems, 1965–2016 by Frank Bidart. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, , (736p) $40 ISBN 978-0-374-12595-0

Half-Light: Collected Poems, 1965–2016<p>Frank Bidart. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, , (736p) $40 ISBN 978-0-374-12595-0<p>More By and About This</b> …

Remembering Mary McCarthy (Less Than Fondly)

When the novelist and essayist Mary McCarthy died in 1989 many observers called her the foremost American woman of letters. In the past quarter of a …

Anaïs Nin’s Words of Wisdom on Love, Life and Writing

The 20th-century writer best known for her scandalous erotic journals was a key inspiration for Schiaparelli’s A/W17 couture collection. Here we …

Vancouver literary mentor Jim Wong-Chu remembered fondly

Wong-Chu, who mentored many young writers and artists in Vancouver's Asian-Canadian community, has died<p>A much-loved Vancouver community builder, who …

Ernest Hemingway's long-lost Los Angeles visit, 80 years ago this week

Lots happened in L.A. last night. Lives ended. Lives began. Couples fought, couples made up. A recently transplanted Manhattan-ite said, “All my friends are here!” I probably fell asleep with a book on my chest.<p>Eighty years from now, what record of these events will survive? Partly that depends on …

Jane Austen's letter about another writer just sold for £162,500

The legendary author was never one to mince words<p>Almost 200 years after her death, Jane Austen is still one of the wittiest voices in literature, and …

Celebrate Thoreau’s 200th birthday with a summer poem from a Bates author

Henry David Thoreau, photographed in 1856 by Benjamin D. Maxham (Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)<p>To celebrate the 200th birthday of Henry David …