Today's birthday

Born on this day, in 1651, was Juana de Asbaje, the first feminist poet of the Americas. Typically, she was forced to stop writing by the Church, and forced to sell her library and donate the money to the poor. Another argument for women to be angry and become atheists, no?

"Sailing to Byzantium", by W. B. Yeats

Poets Forum on Aesthetic Diversity

A full report about the recent poets forum on aesthetic diversity can be found here. It makes for interesting reading, and would have been an event well worth attending.

Embargo Poets

Read the poets that you would never otherwise read: Embargo Poets are poets from those countries, such as Iran, North Korea and Cuba, that the west is refusing to deal with. These are the human voices that we don't hear, these are the consciences of nations that we demanise and dehumanise into charicatures of our own definitions of evil. And these are the voices that may well help save us, in the end.

Good Witz

You can find the entire run of Witz magazine being put online in pdf formats at Christopher Reiner's website. This is an indispensible resource for studying late 20th century poetics, and is well worth a browse.

The Threat of Cheap Books

This article discusses the threat on the German book by cheap Swiss imports. Interesting reading.

Charles Bukowski

Why should we read poetry?

John Lundberg at the Huffington Post just might have some answers you need, in case you're wondering.

Five Books a Week: can it be done?

The Poetry Foundation has an interesting article by by Paisley Rekdal, on her attempt to read five poetry books a week. You can read it here at http://poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=180140.

Some sound to spice up your day

The Poetry Foundation podcast and audio page is a good place to start listening to poetry on the web. If you get the chance to hear other poets, take it, as I have to make do with reciting what I read. Sometimes, that just deadens the experience, listening to your own voice all the time, but you get some practice at least, in reciting. But here, at least as with the Radio National Poetica website there are other poets to listen to, other ways to hear the poem (and the poem previously unheard) that will satiate the jaded palate.

Concordances

The Christopher Brennan concordance is proceeding apace, and I was wondering what other Australian poets should have concordances done. What do you think: who would you recommend as the recipient of a concordance?

Looking Forward to the Future

APRIL -- the Australian Poetry Resources Internet Library -- is in the process of being set up. It will be open for business about mid-2008.

It looks like it will be an exciting site to visit, and I am eager to see what they have in store.

Their website is at http://april.edu.au/2home/home.shtml.

DIY - How to Make a Zine; Paper, Scissors, Pen - Rockin!

Email woes

I'm having some troubles with my Yahoo email account. I have got a back up, but if you need me use my gmail account: phillip.a.ellis at gmail dot com.

National Poetry Week 2007

I was so busy with the concordance that I missed National Poetry Week here, but, thankfully, PoeticA didn't. You can catch their broadcast here, along with other weeks' broadcasts, at their website. It goes for about 40 minutes, but it is well worth listening to.

The Dead -- by Billy Collins

This is one piece by Billy Collins that I enjoy quite a lot. It is short and to the point, much the same as my ideal poem, the ideal poem that I always try to write.

One of my heroes

I had never heard of Elyn Saks before today, but she is one of my heroes. Without her example, without the example of others like her, I would not be living the life that I do today.

You can read a news story about her in the Los Angeles Times, here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-madness10sep10,0,4313873.story?page=1&track=mostviewed-storylevel

Apologies

I know I've been a bit of a slackarse lately, but university and other work has just been so much that I've pretty much forgotten about everything else.

Starting from today, I am leaving the afternoons for emails, and the mornings for chat, blogs, and my homepage. I plan to do more work, more regularly on the last two, and so both keep up to date, and keep the new material coming in.

Starting from today, I shall be linking both of my blogs to my homepage.

I hope that this good intention, at least, will last.

At Last! Writer Beware Blogs! A.C. Crispin and Victoria Strauss Reveal All!: Victoria Strauss -- Literary Agents for Poets?

There's a good post for poets here, at At Last! Writer Beware Blogs! A.C. Crispin and Victoria Strauss Reveal All!: Victoria Strauss -- Literary Agents for Poets?

I recommend looking through it, not only for the advice regarding agents, but also for the collection of links at the bottom. The work put into this is evident, and it is one of the better general posts about poetry that I have read recently.

Essential Sites

The Poetry Resource Page: http://www.poetryresourcepage.com/

This site organises a number of links according to discrete categories. Such as publishers, which collects both publications and publishers proper. Of interest is the art page, to help with inspiration.

Greetings and Salutations!

This is the first post of my new blog, that is dedicated entirely to poetry. It will cover various elements that I am interested in, and I hope to showcase the poetry of friends and those poets that I admire.

Feel free to relax, pull up a pew, and settle right in.

Phillip