Timothy Green's Blog
June 8, 2009
The first book was written 5,000 years ago, and the first book review 4,999 years, 11 months, and 28 days. There’s been quite the hubbub ever since, particularly when it comes to reviews of poetry. Should we waste space writing negative reviews, when so many brilliant collections languish in the shadows? But if they’re always positive, don’t they become as uninteresting and distrusted as blurbs? Does critical opinion even matter? Is any publicity good publicity? And so on. Here are some r
June 6, 2009
June 5, 2009
June 4, 2009
An Idea I Will Never Use, So If You Want It It’s Yours
If I was running an online-only poetry journal, I would completely ditch the “issue” model that magazines have been operating under for the last 300 years, and publish continuously, in a blog-style format.* Hopefully with enough publishable content to add a new poem every weekday. The main beef I have with online literary magazines is that they don’t embrace their own technology — they try to make the journal seem as much like a print journ
June 1, 2009
In a comment on last week’s very brief post, Cafais asks, “Why, in 2009, is a tribute to ‘African American’ poets necessary?” It’s a very important question, of course — I asked the same as part of the promotional blurb for the issue. The main point, Cafais writes, seems to be that black poetry should be allowed to flourish — but wouldn’t we all agree that this should apply to all kinds of poetry? Why focus on race at all?
The question is too big for a single issue of a magazine to answer, or f
May 21, 2009
If you haven’t noticed, the summer issue of Rattle is now available. There are two posts I wanted to make about it, but I don’t have time right now — I’m driving up to San Francisco right now to read with Joel Tan tonight at Moe’s Books (see event list). So for the moment I’ll just post the beautiful cover and list the contributors. More soon.
TRIBUTE TO AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS
Meta DuEwa Jones • Susan B.A. Somers-Willett • Alvin Aubert
DéLana R.A. Dameron • Toi Derricotte • Camille T. Dungy • T
May 18, 2009
May 15, 2009
The party last night was great — I’m not a party person, but we made it out alive, without crying in a corner or spilling beer on a rare book, so chalk it up as a win. I didn’t think to bring a camera, so there will be no pictures, unless Red Hen posts them on Facebook, but there was a good turnout, a merry atmosphere, plenty of interesting small talk, free wine, good music… Just an overall nice night.
I wasn’t really thinking of the party as a place to sell books, more just a place to show the
May 13, 2009
Apparently it’s advertising week at TG.org — no real content here, just some things worth pointing to…
A few weeks ago Red Hen Press went live with their new website, which is a tremendous upgrade from the old version. I’m of the mind that a website is central to any business these days, particularly the poetry business, since poems are so internetogenic (Seriously, the condension of experience into a body of text that’s often the size of a computer screen, the urge share good poems with your fr
May 12, 2009
I should have made a post about this earlier, but I’ve been sending emails to local message boards and our mailing lists, and I’m not really sure if there’s anyone left in the area that still hasn’t heard about it.
But this Thursday is Rattle’s 15th anniversary party, a big bash we’re throwing with Red Hen Press, who’s coincidentally also turning 15. Here are the details:
Date: Thursday, May 14th
Time: 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Cost: $5 suggested donation
Phone: 310-399-5544 (Equator Books)
Location: E
