Brilliant Minds

Poetic Amusement - Reviewed

American Book Review has just published a glowing review of Ray Hammond's Poetic Amusement. I've been mentioning Ray's work in this book, especially his theory of the Muse, for years. Read what reviewer Daniel Leary has to say in the online version at Project Muse.

Twain talkin' trash(?)

Garrison Keillor on the Twain autobiography in the NY Times:
Mark Twain's Riverboat Ramblings

Twain bio book via NY Times

Twain's autobiography is selling well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/books/20twain.html

Poetic Amusement - Just published!

I am pleased, make that thrilled, to announce the publication of Poetic Amusement by Ray Hammond. Now you no longer have to be afraid to ask "Where do poems come from?" I've been referring to Ray's work in this book for years. Now you can read the complete argument for yourself. Here is the book description:

Originally written in 2000 as his Master’s thesis, Raymond P. Hammond’s Poetic Amusement has been passed around underground as a digital file for ten years among those associated with The New York Quarterly. As provocative today as it was when it was written, what began as Hammond’s observations of the influence of “po’ biz” and writing programs on contemporary American poetry became a timeless treatise on poetry itself. Using his experience with NYQ and devouring many literary critics across the ages from the ancient Greeks to contemporary critics, Hammond examines at once both our current literary environment and the essence of poetry. In seeking to answer the questions “What is poetry?” and “Where does poetry come from?” for himself, he encourages readers to ask those questions for and of themselves as well. Relevant and accessible to readers and writers of poetry and to those who think they don’t know or want to know what poetry is, Poetic Amusement will anger, elevate and inspire all those who read it.

Available at Amazon and Barnes&Noble now!

Nobel & Booker winners

The Nobel and Booker winners, as reported by the NY Times:

Herta Müller wins the Nobel Prize.

Hilary Mantel wins the Booker Prize.

Erdrich's Doves a Finalist

This article from the NYTimes notes that Louise Erdrich's The Plague of Doves is a finalist in the fiction category for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

eBook for Vonnegut

The NYTimes reports that a collection of Vonnegut previously unpublished stories will be released as an ebook: Article.

NYQ 65

 The new issue of The New York Quarterly (#65) is out. See page 151 for my poem "Deeper than Dante". Read, subscribe, support! If you're downtown, St. Mark's Bookshop has copies on their shelf (as of this past Thursday afternoon).

The 2009 Pulitzers

For a listing of the 2009 Pulitzer prizes for literature, see this list at the NewYork Times.
Note that Louise Erdrich's The Plague of Doves, a book on our Summer list, was a finalist for the prize in fiction.

On the Name and the Muse

The NYTimes takes on an old issue. Remember how those epic heroes wanted to be sung of by the Bards to be immortalized. Well, here comes an examination of the name of the poet: On Poetry - The Great(ness) Game.