Literature and medicine
In a recent segment on PBS NewsHour, host Jeffrey Brown and poet laureate Natasha Trethewey examined the intersection between poetry and medical healing. The feature, called “Student physicians examine poetry to hone art… Read more »
Each poem an elegy
On the cusp of the new year, Octopus no. 16 went live, and with it Heather Christle’s “Poem for Bill Cassidy.” Cassidy, as Christle explained in a blog post, was published… Read more »
The poem as object
In the Atlantic, Loyola University New Orleans professor Mark Yakich reflects on the way he and his students have thought about poems in his creative writing classes. What is the… Read more »
On accessibility in poetry
In a recent piece for the New York Times, David Orr investigates “Points of Entry” in poetry. In contrast to the usual argument on accessibility, Orr builds his by beginning with the… Read more »
Exile, assassins, and a probable answer behind the death of Pablo Neruda
Just as it turns out that Yasser Arafat may have been killed by radioactive poison, new evidence indicates that celebrated Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda may not have… Read more »
T. S. Eliot Prize shortlist announced
On October 23, the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize shortlist was released, after being culled from a longlist of 113 publisher-submitted collections of poetry. Chair of judges Ian Duhig remarked that,… Read more »
This week in 1913: Rilke wants a divorce, King Otto is declared insane, and “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is coined
Just before one of its darkest moments came the twentieth century’s most exciting year . . . It was the year Henry Ford first put a conveyer belt in his car factory, and the… Read more »
Bridging gaps between poets
As reported on Harriet and The Millions, an Indiegogo campaign by Brooklyn Poets asks for funding to build “The Bridge,” a new site which would become “the world’s first poetry network connecting… Read more »
Study reveals the neurological differences between poetry and prose
The science and technology hub RedOrbit reported this month on the University of Exeter’s recent study on reading. In his research, Professor Adam Zeman, a cognitive neurologist at Exeter’s medical school, investigated not only how… Read more »
John Ashbery’s things
In a recent piece for Hazlitt, Chris Randle takes the opportunity to “gawk at” John Ashbery’s possessions, even as the poetry of the famously “inscrutable elder” remains obscure. John Ashbery Collects: Poet Among… Read more »