CruelestMonth.com

Mark Doty Wins National Book Award

Congratulations to Mark Doty, winner of the 2008 National Book Award in Poetry for his book Fire to Fire. The book includes both new poems and work selected from his seven previous collections. The poet blogs at http://markdoty.blogspot.com/, where he wrote a delightful post on the NBA finalists' group reading-- and will presumably be writing on the experience of winning the high accolade shortly as well. The NBA website features information on and interviews with all of the nominees. http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2008.html

Winner: Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems
Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival
Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day
Richard Howard, Without Saying
Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler

Paul Guest

Some information on the new Paul Guest from our friends at Ecco. The new book (his fourth) has received this dazzling collection of blurbs.

 

Poets Forum

There are a large number of poetry related events going on this weekend in New York through the Poets Forum, featuring poets such as Frank Bidart, Louise Glück, Robert Pinsky, and Gary Snyder, among others. For more information check out http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/380. Tomorrow there are 4 different sessions, each focusing on contemporary poetry. It should be a great chance to see many of our top poets discuss contemporary work.

"Some of the most important poets of our time explore questions central to poetry today. Participants in the four intimate panels will include Frank Bidart, Victor Hernández Cruz, Louise Glück, Lyn Hejinian, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gary Snyder, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, Ellen Bryant Voigt, C. K. Williams, and moderators Timothy Donnelly, James Longenbach, Maureen N. McLane, and Tree Swenson."

National Book Award Finalists

Congratulations to all of the nominees for this year's National Book Award in poetry. The winners of the award (one in each catagory) will be named November 19th:

Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems (HarperCollins)
Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day (Louisiana State University Press)
Richard Howard, Without Saying (Turtle Point Press)
Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press)

Wave Books

Here's a really interesting new Publisher's Weekly article about one of the most important poetry presses around, and how it got started, Wave Books. One of the most unique things about Wave Books was the poetry bus tour they ran in 2006, a cross-country tour where poets would hop aboard, travel, give readings, and tour throughout the country (a kind of Ken Kesey/Merry Prankers-reminiscent venture.)

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6593356.html

Publishing Legend Robert Giroux Passes Away at 94

Last Friday publishing legend Robert Giroux (of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) passed away. He had an amazing life, editing many of the greatest writers of the 20th century, including T. S. Eliot, Jack Kerouac, Flannery O'Connor, and Virginia Woolf.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/books/06giroux.html

Devin Johnston's Sources

Turtle Point Press has just published an intriguing new collection by Devin Johnston, called Sources. This is Johnston's third book of poems. The below poem, one of my favorites from the new book, discusses this theme of origins as well.

“Sparkling with energy and intelligence, these poems are likes chips in a mosaic, spare, hard, precise, and with a classic humanity and grace.” — David Malouf

 

The Greeks

Ladder and source,
we find no ease

never quite
at home at home.

No, never, not
darken the page

in a childish script.
Winter has come.

Ladders lean
against the sky,

sources whistle
past our lips.

Pacing rugs
or battered roads

we wait for what
we know we know.

Recent Releases

A few more recent releases:

The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door
By Robert W. Bly, Leonard Lewisohn

Written over a period of 15 years, this is a collection of poems by Persian poet Hafez (a fellow Persian poet to Rumi), by Robert Bly and Persian scholar Leonard Lewisohn.

"Robert understands the wild assertions of Hafez and his transparency. Robert’s translations have the nimbleness and daring of the lover. This is the book we have been waiting for." — Coleman Barks

Sea Change
By Jorie Graham

The New York Times has said that "Jorie Graham's poetry is among the most sensuously embodied and imaginative writing we have."

"Our most formidable nature poet" — Publishers Weekly

Fire to Fire
By Mark Doty

Selected work from Doty's seven books, along with a generous collection of new work.

"Doty’s facility with his chosen form...is so natural that the craft in his work is all but invisible; he makes the damnably difficult look deceptively simple."  Booklist

Seven Notebooks
Poems
By Campbell McGrath

And a short excerpt from Seven Notebooks:

An ant to the stars
or stars to the ant—which is
more irrelevant?

Weekend Jet Skiers—
rude to call them idiots,
yes, but facts are facts.

Clamor of seabirds
as the sun falls—I look up
and ten years have passed."
—from "Dawn Notebook"

John Clare collection

Major Works (Oxford World's Classics) by John Clare, Eric Robinson, David Powell, and Tom Paulin (Paperback - Sep 1, 2008)

 

Just out is this large collection of work by John Clare. A lesser known Romantic poet, Clare is wonderful. He also had a fascinating and rather tragic life, spending much of it in an insane asylum. But his poetry is full of the beauties of nature and a remarkable and kind spirit.

 

Secret Love

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where eer I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good bye.

I met her in the greenest dells
Where dewdrops pearl the wood blue bells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town
Till een the breeze would knock me down,
The bees seemed singing ballads oer,
The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
And even silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.

New and upcoming

A couple of interesting upcoming collections:

 

John Ashbery: Collected Poems 1956-1987

by John Ashbery (Hardcover - Oct 2, 2008)

The first volume of a two volume collected series. This is the first time the Library of America has issued a collection of poetry by a living poet, and of course Ashbery is the perfect choice for the accolade. Volume editor Mark Ford (an intriguing poet in his own right) has also participated in a book-long interview with Ashbery called John Ashbery in Conversation with Mark Ford. Ashbery's selected later poems, Notes from the Air, will be coming out in paperback in October as well (10/28).

    

 

 

Ballistics: Poems by Billy Collins (Hardcover - Sep 9, 2008)

A new book by one of America's most popular poets. When I saw him give a talk once he explained how he used to write very serious poetry as a young man, terribly grave stuff, as William Collins. Then he changed his tone, and his moniker, and has never looked back.

A new James Tate collection

In case you hadn't seen it yet, Pulitzer Prize-winner James Tate has a new book out called The Ghost Soldiers.

“Mr. Tate’s gift is such that many of [his] poems move me at least to plain envy of what he can do.”

–W.S. Merwin

"It's rare that a poet so far into his career—this is Tate's 15th collection—comes up with something new; quietly, Tate has found a fresh way of telling some of America's stories."

–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Cherubic

     I took my daughter Kelsey to the train
station. As the train was leaving, we waved
and waved to one another. I never saw her again.
She went on to become the fi rst woman on the moon.
How she got there nobody knew. And she never
came back, as far as I know. And she never wrote
me a letter, she never called. I just hope she’s
happy, my moonbeam. Every night I’m at my telescope.
I’ve seen dinosaurs, snow leopards, fl amingos.
I saw a one-eyed dog wagging its tail. I saw a
mail truck. I saw a sailboat, but, of course,
there is no water. I saw a sign for water pointing
to the earth. I saw a sign for hamburgers
pointing to the earth. And I saw a little girl
fall off her tricycle. A poof of atomic tangerine
dust, that’s all. I never saw the girl again.
The tumbled tricycle’s wheels kept spinning.
Sleep, I said, sleep, little baby.

Pulitzer Prize goes to Robert Hass

Congratulations to this year's Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Hass, for his book Time and Materials. The book had previously won the National Book Award, so this is quite a feat.

Audio of Hass reading his work and reflecting on his writing process is available from UC Berkeley.

From Time and Materials:

Ezra Pound's Proposition

Beauty is sexual, and sexuality
is the fertility of the earth and the fertility
Of the earth is economics. Though he is no recommendation
For poets on the subject of finance,
I thought of him in the thick heat
Of the Bangkok night. Not more than fourteen, she saunters up to you
Outside the Shangri-la Hotel
And says, in plausible English,
"How about a party, big guy?"

Here is more or less how it works:
The World Bank arranges the credit and the dam
Floods three hundred villages, and the villagers find their way
To the city where their daughters melt into the teeming streets,
And the dam's great turbines, beautifully tooled
In Lund or Dresden or Detroit, financed
By Lazard Freres in Paris or the Morgan Bank in New York,
Enabled by judicious gifts from Bechtel of San Francisco
Or Halliburton of Houston to the local political elite,
Spun by the force of rushing water,
Have become hives of shimmering silver
And, down river, they throw that bluish throb of light
Across her cheekbones and her lovely skin.

We're back

Cruelest Month is back. I'm looking forward to sharing and discovering with you what's going on in the world of poetry–onwards we go! –Rob

Poems

You might be wondering what has roused the Cruelest Month from its unfortuante hibernation.  To answer, I have a few poems that I'd really like to share.  The poets are Sarah Stofko and Tess Stofko (my nieces) who are in the 7th and 5th grades, respectively.

"The Artist's Eye" by Sarah Stofko

Able to see what is not there

Able to create a masterpiece out of nothing

Deep in the mind behind this treasure

Lays a hidden world longing to break free

And soon it will

It will shatter the bounds

Of fear and insecurity

The artist's eye will lead the way

On the path of success

On the path of discovery

On the path of creation

The eye lives on everyone waiting to lead the way

Weather it be directly used for what is considered art

Or if it is creating a home,

A family,

A business,

Some of these eyes

Are more recognizable

And others hide

They lurk just waiting for the right time

To show the mind behind it

A whole new world

An abstract world

A better,

Stranger,

More beautiful world

 

"Untitled" by Tess Stofko

Oceans

Never Whole

Never to Understand

Give and

Take

 

"I Don't Understand" by T.S.

                    I don't understand

Life is short, too short.     How to canter, but not post.

Enjoy it!  You can always,     How to sit 'n trot.

Always enjoy it!     To hard, so I mess it up.

No matter where the wind blows,     While trying again and again

It matters not where you go.     And again.

"Free Verse     Three Word Poem!" by T.S.

I'm going to my Aunt Kimmie's     Lunch, munch, play

In Goshen, New York     Munch, play, talk

All weekend long I'll stay     Play, talk, run

Doing the things we like to do,     Talk, run, classroom

No grouchy adults in our way!     Run, classroom, Bored.

*******

Of note today, John Ashbery has won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems.

NBCC's Winter Recommended Reads

Poetry

1. Elegy by Mary Jo Bang (Graywolf)
2. Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco)
2. Gulf Music by Robert Pinsky (FSG)
4. The Collected Poems, 1956–1998 by Zbigniew Herbert (Ecco)
5. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow (Harper)

Read more at Critical Mass.

Sharp Teeth now on sale!

I went ga-ga about this book back in the dizzle like six months ago.  Now it's on sale, living, breathing, changing out in the market place.  So keep an eye out for Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow.  And check out the video.

Signed book giveaway at www.olivereader.com.

Center for the Art of Translation...Party!

This Friday from 6:30pm-8:0pm the Center for the Art of Translation will host a "celebration of global voices in Times Square with acclaimed authors and translators from 15 years of TWO LINES: World Writing in Translation."  Readers will include:

Suzanne Jill Levine reading JORGE VOLPI (from Spanish)
Geoffrey Brock reading GUIDO GOZZANO (from Italian)
Alexis Levitin reading ASTRID CABRAL (from Portuguese)
Susan Bernofsky reading YOKO TAWADA (from German)
Trudy Balch reading MATILDA KOEN-SARANO (from Ladino)
Douglas Basford reading JEAN SENAC (from French)

Also, there will be a tribute to special guest Gregory Rabassa.  (He was unable to attend A Tribute to Robert Fagles a little while ago, to my disappointment, so fingers crossed.)

***

Also, I'm very happy to read that the University of Michigan's department of English is holding a conference March 6-7 called "Writing in Public: A Celebration of Karl Pohrt," who is founder and owner of Shaman Drum Shop, Ann Arbor, MI.  Read more about the even and Karl here.  I've been lucky enough to work with him on Reading the World.  This celebration is much deserved.

Seven Notebooks by Campbell McGrath

I am bad.  I should have shown you this sooner.  Here is Campbell McGrath's newest collection Seven Notebooks.   According to a close colleague at Ecco, Seven Notebooks is, "formally, unlike any other book of poetry, by McGrath or anyone else (almost a novel in verse). It is his most remarkable, and best, achievement to date."

Zbigniew Herbert Book Club at Words Without Borders

Words Without Borders has dedicated the month of January to a discussion of Zbigniew Herbert and the recently published Collected Poems: 1956-1998 (which will be coming out in paperback next month).  So far, features include an introductory essay by James Marcus and an interview between Cynthia Haven and Peter Dale Scott.  Other notable writers/poets/translators such as Anna Frajlich, Andrzej Franaszek, William Martin, and Alissa Valles will contribute over the course of the month.  I'm so pleased that the spotlight remains bright on Herbert since the publication of his Collected.  If you haven't yet familiarized yourself with this great poet, here's a wonderful opportunity.

"Snow-Flakes"

The Academy of American Poets sent a very nice poem along with their season's greetings.  It's just too perfect; I hope they don't mind if I share it as well:

"Snow-Flakes"

Out of the bosom of the Air,
     Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
     Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
        Silent, and soft, and slow
        Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
    In the white countenance confession,
        The troubled sky reveals
        The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
        Now whispered and revealed
        To wood and field.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings, Library of America, 2000.

As it so happened, Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1835) was the first book Harper ever published.

Happy New Year, Y'all!

The New Year approaches and along with it so does the Cruelest Month's second birthday. Conceived on a muggy winter afternoon, born and reared by the imprint Ecco, it stands, in the twilight of 2007, on a crumbling precipice. Where have the posts been? Will the sounding of the New Year also ring the final tolls for this happy little blog? I aver that I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Possibly. But possibly maybe.

Not that you require me to justify myself, it's only a natural reaction when one knows what they should be doing and they aren't. I think they call that a sin of omission. But let's hope I manage, for your sake and mine, that I keep the posts worthwhile. Is this post worthwhile? Well, it's just got to be.

Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone who has stayed up with the site. Thanks for all your wonderful comments and enthusiasm for poetry and literature. I look forward to all that comes next...with us...together in a committed relationship...sharing everything.

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

Portraits

I've lifted this from a post on Paper Cuts, where you can find more information on the paintings and the video's creator. 

Marginalia

Here are a few things you may want to do, read, or see:

The Academy of American Poets and Viking Penguin present A Tribute to Robert Fagles.
Tuesday, December 11
The Times Center, 242 West 41st Street
7:00 p.m.

From the official copy: "Please join Francine du Plessix Gray, Edith Grossman, Shirley Hazzard, Richard Howard, J.D. McClathcy, Charles McGrath, Gregory Rabassa, David Remnick, and C.K. Williams in this celebration of poet and translator Robert Fagles's repeated success in illuminating the ground between "the features of an ancient author and the expectation of a contemporary reader." 

***

Prague Summer Program with Stuart Dybek

***

Poets House presents "Our Emily Dickinson: A 21st Century Response by Artists & Writers" @ Tribeca Peforming Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street.  Thursday, December 6, 7:00 p.m.

***

Beth Dow - Fieldwork is showing until December 8th at the Jen Bekman gallery at 6 Spring Street.  I popped in over the weekend.  There are thirteen black and white photographs printed in silver platinum-palladium process; the technical aspects of which I can tell you nothing about.  And never forget Jen's generous, nay, genius website 20x200!

***

Read, see, and do when Esther K. Smith, author of How to Make Books, speaks at Cooper Union's Great Hall (7 East 7th Street, Free).  Follow the link above for the official copy.

***

And when you've finally tuckered yourself out, when all the dishes are drying on the rack, when the hallway lights are off, when the curtains are drawn, but not before you brush your teeth, dip into Sleeping and Waking by Michael O'Brien or The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms.  Assuming you have a hallway.  Pff.

Preening

You may have gleaned from my posts that I'm learning French or, more accurately, that I'm enrolled in French classes.  Whether there has been any learning remains to be seen.  Happily, I find one of the best modes of instruction is reading French poetry.  (I mean, what do you know?)  Here's a poem from one of my favorite authors, Raymond Queneau.  See what you can understand (translation below).  (And it helps to read the original aloud with a rhee-di-kuh-lus Frauench aghsennt.)

“L’Espèce Humaine”

L’espèce humaine m’a donné
le droit d’être mortel
le devoir d’être civilisé
la conscience humaine
deux yeux qui d’ailleurs ne fonctionnent pas très bien
le nez au milieu du visage
deux pieds deux mains
le langage
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
mon père et ma mère
peut-être des frères on ne sait
des cousins à pelletées
et des arrière-grands-pères
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
ses trois facultés
le sentiment l’intelligence et la volonté
chaque chose de façon modérée
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
trente-deux dents un cœur un foie
d’autres viscères et dix doigts
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
de quoi se dire satisfait

"The Human Species"

The human species has given me
the right to be mortal

the duty to be civilized

a conscience

2 eyes that don't always function very well

a nose in the middle of my face

2 feet 2 hands

speech

the human species has given me

my father and mother

some brothers maybe who knows

a whole mess of cousins

and some great-grandfathers

the human species has given me

its 3 faculties

feeling intellect and will

each in moderation

32 teeth 10 fingers a liver

a heart and some other viscera

the human species has given me

what I'm supposed to be satisfied with

--translated by Teo Savory (The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry, edited by Paul Auster, 1984)

Now may be an opportune moment to mention exactly how I feel about the book above.  Go buy it!  The introduction is fantastic.  The translations were all crafted by leading literary figures of the 20th century.  The original poems are by the most impeccable French poets.  Plus the books looks très moderne, so people will think you are wicked smart.  That may not have been exactly how I feel, but it dances near enough to the truth.