Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Literary Round: No BS Version

Over at Brevity Barrie Jean Borich discusses The Craft of Writing Queer.

Randall Horton reviews Remica Bingham’s What We Ask of Flesh over at The Offending Adam.

I'm not sure how I feel about this list of Top 10 Hottest Poets of the 19th Century via The Writing Source. Despite that it's "meant to be fun," it still feels disrespectful. Thoughts?

There's a new issue of Rose & Thorn available, including work by the lovely Mary Stone Dockery.

Kelli Russell Agondon provides a nice list of gifts for the world-lovers in your life.

BBC News reports on Chinese writers living in a culture that censors their work and imprisons them for writing it.

Matthew Bostick doesn't freak out about e-publishing. Good for him. We might consider the same.

Karen Lillis is collecting various writers' list of favorite small/indie press books from 2012. Here's the first installment. I plan to send mine noms soon.

Cheryl Strayed shares this dynamite quote from Adrienne Rich:

"We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation."  -Adrienne Rich

Funny little poetry nugget.

And finally, the Poetry Foundation gathered a list of Hanukkah poems.

Monday, December 3, 2012

When Siblings Spawn

My brother is having a baby. Well, his wife is doing the "having" (and by having I mean pushing and screaming and laboring) while he's doing the calming and the pep-talking and the ice-chip-getting.

I'm really excited. Can you tell? In case it's not clear, below is a photo depicting my excitement.

I can't wait to go home for Christmas. I leave early on December 14th. Everyone else in my big-ass family will have had two weeks with my soon-to-be-born (possibly-already-born-by-the-time-you-read-this) nephew, so I will get to love that little monkey all to myself. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. There's a lot of family that loves him. He's a lucky kid.

babies are kyooot!