CruelestMonth.com

Here's an article that makes me miss America: "Racy Letters From Hemingway to Dietrich to Be Unsealed."

April, no, don't say it.

The month of April is leering at me from Sunday.  The bitch.  It's like a terribly attractive girl, coquetting with her light clothing and smooth skin, but with the unmistakable air of having TOO MUCH GOING ON.  Here are a few of the many happenings invading my mindspace (most, obviously, in collusion with National Poetry Month):

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH/April (what's everybody doing?)

Academy of American Poets, the inaugurator of NPM in 1996, will run a poem-a-day program and a "star-studded celebration of American poetry" at Lincoln Center on April 11th.  It also has a National Poetry Map listing events in every state.

A Public Space, the flippin-fantastic lit mag, will host a "month-long series of poetry readings...at [their] Dean Street office."

Tartan Week hits NYC like a sack of heavy Scottish rocks.  The festivities will last from March 31-April 8 and include The Isle of Jura Festival of Scottish Writing, which will "celebrate and promote Scotland's world-class literary heritage again this year with a showcase of literary genius."  Just try and pass that up.  To whet your appetite, visit "Viva Caledonia: a multi-media showcase, celebrating the cutting edge of Scottish creative talent" over at the Mad Hatter's Review.

PEN/World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature happens April 24-29.  I attended a number events last year and am very excited to do so again.  The number of events and participating authors is staggering.  Luckily it's over three week away, so there's some time to plan your approach (or not).

And that's news to me.

Poets House Showcase

Fun event tonight at Poets House celebrating poetry publishers.  It will be the last Showcase to be held at 72 Spring Street.  Next year, they will have moved to their new permanent home in Battery Park City.  I hope to have something to report: new programs and such.

And my interview with Ellis Avery, author of The Teahouse Fire, is up over at Small Spiral Notebook.  So if you're in need of actual content, instead of my weak daily asides, go take a look.

To note

It is 72 degrees in New York!

There is a fire in the construction site next to our building.  Everyone is on their lunch break, sucking down the spectacle with some tasty cigarettes.

The New Yorker has issued an Editor's Note regarding the Dana Goodyear/David Orr exchange.  Some facts that perhaps should have been disclosed earlier are now disclosed.  Eat the Press.

And, good news around here, Mark Doty, whose memoir Dog Years is just out from HarperCollins, will answer a few of my doe-eyed questions.  TK.  (Actually, you might want to pick up this book beforehand.  You know, to bone up.  GET IT?)

John Ashbery and Ron Padgett...

...read tomorrow night, March 27th at 6:30pm, at The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster Street, New York, NY.  To kick-off National Poetry Month a few days early and to celebrate "the work of two New York School poets known for revitalizing poetry as ground for serious play," Ashbery will read from his new volume A Worldly Country and Padgett "will read from a new selection of [Kenneth] Koch's work he has edited for the Library of America."  So, to be clear, it's Ashbery and Koch we're celebrating.  Though, I might celebrate Padgett a little bit too; it'll depend on the weather.

The full linkage can be found here.

Paperback Row - The Ministry of Pain

From this past Sunday's NYTBR Paperback Row

The Ministry of Pain, by Dubravka Ugresic.  Translated by Michael Henry Heim.  Ugresic explores the cultural and personal fallout from the disintegration of Yugoslavia in this searing novel about exiled Croats, Serbs and Bosnians.  Her protagonist, Tanja Lucic, a Croatian writer, teaches Slavic literature in Amsterdam to other young refugees.  ("I was naturally well aware of the absurdity of my situation," Tanja says. "I was to teach a subject that officially no longer existed.")

Michael Heim has translated the next original paperback in the Ecco7 series, Day In Day Out by Terézia Mora.  And his translation of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice for Ecco won the 2005 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize.  I was going to write another sentence with some version of the word "translation" in it, but I thought it would be one too many.

Translation.

"It's a beer shit" - Bukowski Contest Winners

The time is upon us.  The winners are picked.  But I'd like to say a few things first, for the sake of transparency.  Mine, and everyone's, is a relative sensibility.  You know that.  For some sense of correctness or consistency, I read every poem imagining the words coming from Buk's mouth.

I wanted it to sound natural.  Then I read through a book or two of his poems, for a reminder of his rhythm and humor.  And, of course, I wanted the poem to be able to stand by itself.  I hope that these modest preparations put me on solid ground to assess.  That said, every poem was great.  Everyone had at least a few lines that were wicked  I'm very pleased that this contest helped them come into being (if not, I take no credit).

The winners will all receive a copy of The People Look Like Flowers At Last -- the fifth and final posthumous collection of new poetry from Ecco.  They will also receive a ton of Buk swag -- t-shirts, bumper stickers, magnets, etc.  In addition, 1st place will receive an original Black Sparrow Press Buk book of my choosing.  2nd place -- one of three newly repackaged Buk novels.  And 3rd place -- a stained love note from a mental patient.

And remember each one is meant to be his last poem.  Thanks to everyone who entered!!!

First Place

"that's it"

well
no one
is at my door
with a six pack
or ringing me on the phone
to see if they can come over
to show me some pomes
they're sure I'll love
all the horses
and whores
have run out
li po and hem and dos
are gone and sibelieus and
jeffers are gone
mozart and
mccullers are gone and
me
I'm left here
with my cats
in this room
to finish this glass
and watch the window
to see
if the sun
goes down
in an unusual

way.

- Stephen from Darthmouth, Nova Scotia

Okay!

This past week the Buk contest has been doing all the work.  But not for much longer.  The deadline will be 5pm today (U.S. eastern time).  That's 2pm in San Francisco, 4pm in Minneapolis, 9pm in Dublin, 10pm in Berlin.   We're very punctual around here.

Empathetic discomfort

The 8th floor here at HarperCollins has been cleared for renovations.  The entire publicity department has been displaced to some far corner of the building where two dozen of them sit in rows of chin-high, adjacent cubicles.  It looks like some fem law firm or an escort service.  Here on the 7th floor the music of construction plays above us like a family of walrus in its painfully flatulent death throws.  I am actually starting to feel sick.

I'll give a last pitch for the Buk "final poem" contest.  We have a good many to choose from, but I thought it'd be polite to remind you again.  So BUK CONTEST!

Until later...

Recap: The Herbert Tribute

I don't think I have the perspective (nor the right, really) to write a narrative recap of last night's tribute to Zbigniew Herbert.  It was a genuine celebration of heritage, of friendship, of endurance.  I was an outsider just happy to eavesdrop--even if I didn't know what they were saying half the time.

Elzbieta Matynia, a professor at the New School, after making her opening remarks, played a recording of Zbigniew reading "Two Drops."  His voice came through the speakers as a thick-throated growl, distressing the air between his molars and tongue, breaking it up like, I don't know, rocks.  (Some people have it, I don't.)  It lent a reverential and fond tone to the readings that followed.

Bob Kerrey, President of the New School; the actress Elzbieta Czyzewska; Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation; the political writer Adam Michnik; Alice Quinn, you know; poet Adam Zagajewski; and Alissa Valles, the wonderful translator and editor of this Collection; each spoke in turn about Herbert and their relationship to his work, and each read a poem or two.

The tribute truly took shape during the panel discussion when Adam Zagajewski and Adam Michnik had a spirited exchange over the value of Herbert's poetics.  Zagajewski said that "Herbert is about the hesitation."  By remaining between meanings, between aesthetics, "Herbert acheives the boundaries of poetry."  He consented that "Adam [Michnik] won't agree with me, but he doesn't understand English so well."  This got laughs, of course, from me and everybody.  Matynia whispered a translation to Michnik a moment later and he lit up with a smile.

To avoid getting squishy with emotion, I'll stop myself there.  In lieu of full disclosure, pay a visit to the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies or buy the book.

Enter the Buk - below.