The Kingdom of Hay, in Wales, is more than just a little unique. The entire "kingdom" is comprised of just 1,500 people but it boasts a whopping thirty second hand book stores... that's one bookstore for every fifty people! Since 1960, the town has accepted used and discarded books and proudly calls itself "The Town…
Category: Poetry
The Daily Rituals of Ten of the World’s Most Creative People
Do you have a daily ritual when you write? I don't know of a single writer who does not. Maybe it's summoning the Muse...everything must be just so if there is any hope of words appearing on paper. Most of us are NOT like the writer, Muriel Spark who, Ann Lamott notes, "is said to have felt that she was taking…
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Was Pablo Neruda Murdered?
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my…
Quoth “The Raven”: It’s My Birthday! Poe’s Poem turns 168
Yesterday marked the anniversary of the publication Edgar Allan Poe's classic, creepy poem "The Raven." Although there is some dispute, the first publication of the work is generally attributed to The New York Mirror. The poem made Poe a star, but sadly, not a fortune. In the poem, a raven continuously visits a man who has…
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National Book Critics Circle Finalists Announced
It's award season, not just for movies, but for books as well. Yesterday, the National Book Critics Circle announced its finalists for the 2012 publishing year. Since 1976, the National Book Critics Circle has given the award in order "to promote the finest books and reviews published in English." The American organization has selected thirty books…
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The Big Read: Get Talking About Books
One of the things I miss most about graduate school is the time to luxuriate in conversation with intelligent, engaged people about literature. Inevitably, someone had a different take on some element of the book that made me re-evaluate my own position or, conversely, helped me feel more confident about an interpretation. In a recent…
Searching for the Words
How to turn your next Google search into poetry. The Dadaists of the 1920s developed an interesting poetic technique you may have tried yourself, that of cutting up a text and rearranging its words to create a whole new work. Yes, before you crafted dirty limericks on your fridge with a packet of word magnets,…
Seven Poetic Presidents
It's voting time! In the spirit of the culmination of the presidential election tomorrow, below is a list that highlights historic presidents' more poetic attributes. Ever wondered whose poetry Thomas Jefferson cozied up with? Or which past president favored the eccentric Welsh poet Dylan Thomas? Read on to find out... George Washington and Phillis Wheatley…