George Witte's Blog, page 9

Dana Gioia essay on poetry and the teaching of it

I recommend this essay (posted on Poetry Daily, and first published in The Dark Horse) to poets, school librarians, administrators, and in particular to teachers of poetry at the high school and college level. It brilliantly articulates why poetry has lost so much of its audience, how the teaching of poetry has failed poetry itself, and suggests how to recapture not just the readers, but the listeners--the live audience--that once relied on poems to record, remember, tell, summon, entertain, and enthrall:


http://poems.com/special_features/pro...

Seacrow Island reissued: one of the classic children's books

Wonderful news: Seacrow Island by Astrid Lindgren (author of Pippi Longstocking) has just been reissued by the prescient folks at New York Review of Books Children's Collection:

http://www.google.com/url?url=http://...

Seacrow Island is one of the most delightful books for children and adults to read together. Lindgren's story of a family headed by a single father and living in a somewhat ramshackle house on a small island in the Baltic Sea is filled with satisfying adventure, humor, a bit of romance, and a suspenseful resolution. My wife and I read it to our daughters and all of us were captivated. Bravo NYRB!Seacrow Island

New York Times book review of Great Men Die Twice

Here's a review to savor: Bruce Weber on Great Men Die Twice, in the New York Times daily edition, Monday June 22:


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/22/boo...

If you love sports, sportswriting, and in particular the Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier fights that defined an entire era of boxing and spectacle, this book is filled with gems.Great Men Die Twice: The Selected Works of Mark Kram

New York Times piece by Mark Kram, Jr.

Lovely remembrance by Mark Kram, Jr., writing about his father, the legendary sports journalist:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/spo...

Great Men Die Twice: The Selected Works of Mark Kram

Asian Review of Books for This Is How It Really Sounds

Great review for this book in the Asian Review of Books:

http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/new...

If you love skiing, rock music, espionage, and entertain the occasional revenge fantasy against someone who has done you wrong, this is the book for you.

This Is How It Really Sounds: A Novel

Salon interview with Stuart Archer Cohen

Entertaining group interview on Salon, conducted by the very generous Teddy Wayne, and featuring Stuart Archer Cohen, Kelly Link, and others with new books out:

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/21/i%E2%...
This Is How It Really Sounds: A Novel

The Last Flight of Poxl West by Daniel Torday

A wonderful review of this novel by Michiko Kakutani in today's New York Times: a book I recommend to readers of quality fiction, in particular those interested in storytelling and how fact can become fiction, and vice versa.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/boo...
The Last Flight of Poxl West

When Is a Poem Done?

Here's a brief piece written for the Piper Center/Arizona State University blog, in advance of its Desert Nights, Rising Stars writers conference, at which I'll be speaking in February:

http://piper.asu.edu/2015/01/poem-done/


Does She Have a Name?

A sestina on BoingBoing

My friend Bill Carleton--author of Plan B, under the name Augustus Carleton--offers this unusual, entertaining, and on-point sestina about copyright, copying, and popular culture on the BoingBoing site:

http://boingboing.net/2014/10/30/copy...

Worth considering as we poets think about language and the transformative (both enhancing and corrosive) power of duplication.





Plan B

James Dickey's last words on poetry

From The Daily Beast, a wonderful piece by Christopher Dickey, recalling his father's final poetry class, which was captured on tape:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles...#

Bravo to Stephen King for giving "Falling" to his writing students. Is there another teacher who would even think to offer such a challenging (and great) poem as an example of what poetry can do and be?