the weekly poetry news

[quasimodo1]

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: August 23, 2007
The 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center announced its 2007-8 lineup of readings yesterday. Among the writers scheduled to appear are Derek Walcott, the Nobel Prize-winning West Indian poet, on Sept. 17, and the Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat and the South African novelist Zakes Mda on Sept. 20. (Ms. Danticat will read from her new memoir, ''Brother, I'm Dying.'') Mario Vargas Llosa is to appear on Oct. 15, reading from his new novel, and the Polish poet and essayist Adam Zagajewski on Dec. 6. On Jan. 7 the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will read, along with Dave Eggers. (After the reading, they will talk with the Sudanese civil war refugee Valentino Achak Deng, on whom Mr. Eggers based his latest fictionalized biography, ''What Is the What.'') Roddy Doyle, from Ireland, and A. L. Kennedy, from Scotland, will read on Jan. 23; the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak reads from her latest novel, ''The Bastard of Istanbul,'' on Feb. 11. Andrew Motion, the poet laureate of Britain, will appear on April 7, and the Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz, from Hungary, will share the stage with the pianist Andras Schiffon April 17. The full schedule of readings is available at 92y.org. [Announcement of event in the beginning of an article by the NYTimes]

{This thread will attempt to post interesting events and works about very recent happenings relating to poetry, poets and ancillary events, in a light and sometimes humorous manner.} quasimodo1

[quasimodo1]

Wednesday, January 12, 2005
The Real Mr Thomas
LAST month, the world famous and, well, frankly not so world famous were all hanging on the telephone line as anxious, underpaid PAs sent in from LA and London wiggled their ears and scratched their noses in an old village hall with surreptitious intent.

And the reason? Wales's most famous literary watering hole, Browns Hotel in Laugharne, where Dylan Thomas was believed to have first conceived the idea and, indeed, many of the lamentable stereotypes for his radio play, Under Milk Wood, was up for auction.

Carmarthenshire veritably buzzed with excitement, as Pierce Brosnan, the Zeta Jones-Douglas alliance and even Mick Jagger were all rumoured to be lining up to buy this rather seen-better-days slice of Welsh literary history. No doubt a few of the more optimistic - and understandably opportunistic - residents saw their house prices augmenting by the second.

But in any event, the cruel, rather more prosaic facts of life meant that the deal was clinched, in the end, by celebrated thinker and cultural opinion former Neil Morrissey, famous for such ground-breaking television as Boon and, rather appropriately, Men Behaving Badly. http://kathrynlouisegray.blogspot.com/2005/01/real-mr-thomas.html

[quasimodo1]

First Chapter
‘The Poe Shadow’


By MATTHEW PEARL
Published: June 11, 2006
I remember the day it began because I was impatient for an important letter to arrive. Also, because it was meant to be the day of my engagement to Hattie Blum. And, of course, it was the day I saw him dead.



'The Poe Shadow,' by Matthew Pearl: Nevermore (June 11, 2006) The Blums were near neighbors of my family. Hattie was the youngest and most affable of four sisters who were considered nearly the prettiest four sisters in Baltimore. Hattie and I had been acquainted from our very infancies, as we were told often enough through the years. And each time we were told how long we'd known each other, I think the words were meant also to say, "and you shall know each other evermore, depend upon it." ...from Sunday NYTimes review.