Kelli Russell Agodon's Blog, page 128

For the Poets, English Majors &/or Pop Music Lovers...Paul Muldoon, Editor of the New Yorker Critiques Ke$ha's Tic Tok

"Deep Discussions on Contemporary Poetry" ;-)



I like it when poets go pop-culture and do funny youtube videos.



Here's Paul Muldoon critiquing Ke$ha's song and even a King Lear comparison. BTW, "crunk" means "crazy-drunk..." I mention this because it comes up in the interview if you can believe it.



Oh and Ke$ha is a 23 year old pop-singer who's like a dirty Hannah Montana, but blond and talks a lot about alcohol and "her junk." How do Paul Muldoon, Princeton University, poetry, and Ke$ha ...

Something I Said...

Thank you to the WayBack Machine Internet Archive , I was able to find all the old posts that disappeared into cosmos when I freaked out and deleted my old blog three years ago.



If you ever decide to delete your blog, please keep a copy for yourself.  I am thankful for the Wayback Machine for keeping *most* of what I wrote.  A few things were lost, but that was my lesson to learn.  And I did.



Since it's National Poetry Month, I decided to revisit an old post I wrote about the kind of poet I...

How to Celebrate National Poetry Month - Visit Verse Daily

This is one of my favorite poetry websites for getting a poem a day:  Verse Daily



Not only have I been featured on there, but so have many many poets who were published in Crab Creek Review.



Thank you Verse Daily!

Want Free Poetry Books Mailed to Your House?!

Well friends, we have done it.  Our first year to try this and we found 50 generous people to celebrate National Poetry Month by giving away free books.

Here is the final list of all 50! poet/bloggers/poetry lovers participating in the poetry book giveaway this year.  

Please feel free to go to their websites to enter into their drawings for free poetry books, they are all linked below.

Happy National Poetry Month!

~Kells

The Complete List of Bloggers Participating in the Poetry Book...

Congrats Ms. Maya Peep

Good Morning Friends, 

Just a quick announcement to let you know that Maya Ganesan won the Peeps prize and Nin Andrew's book Sleeping with Houdini!  Also, Maya's favorite candy was chocolate (good choice!), so I'll throw a couple extra chocolate treats inside the package for her.

Thank you for all who took part in the contest.  Maya was number 11 in the list of comments...



Maya, watch for my email and congrats!

Tax Day Giveaway--

I'm giving away Nin Andrews here - so if you'd like a chance to win Nin Andrews fantastic book, leave me a comment on that post (right now, there are only 6 comments, so you have a pretty good chance of winner). Plus, I'm sending Peeps as well.  I'll be doing the drawing tomorrow morning, so make sure to enter today!



Oh and here's a link to Nin Andrews blog...

Poet Portraits: Lorine Niedecker -

Lorine Niedecker, photo from Jacket Magazine

One of my favorite poets, yet probably one who is least known, Lorine Niedecker.

If you want to learn more about her, I recommend these two books: Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works and America's Greatest Unknown Poet: Lorine Niedecker Reminiscences, Photographs, Letters and Her Most Memorable Poems.  (Also, click on the link to Jacket Magazine under her photo as they have good introduction to her.)





She writes a lot of shorter poems and she...

Underlife by January Gill O'Neil Blog Tour

I'm part of a "blog tour" for January Gill O'Neil's book, Underlife (New Voices).

If you don't know what a blog tour is, it's a great way for someone who has published a book (or even has a new item to promote) to gain some attention for what they've done by being featured by different bloggers.   It was organized by Read. Write. Poem. & you can see the other bloggers who are taking part in it here.

I signed up to be part of January's blog tour because I love her book and her poems in...

How Great is Sandra Beasley?

I love this video for National Poetry Month--







By Sandra Beasley, author of I Was the Jukebox: Poems (here's a link to her blog)

The Writing Group

(From left to right:  Annette Spaulding-Convy, Janet Knox, Jenifer Lawrence, Ronda Broatch - Missing Lana Ayers, Holly Hughes, Jeannine Hall Gailey )



This is my writing group, or most of my writing group.  We met last night to discuss our poems.  We've been meeting once or twice a month for the last eight or nine (?) years.  Something like that.



We don't have a formal name, but when we meet we say something that leans toward something that sounds like a therapy session:  "We have group toni...