Last September, I chimed in on David Alpaugh’s provocative essay, “What’s Really Wrong with Poetry Book Contests.” The problem is economic — book contests are an easy way to get poets to subsidize their own publication. You can think of it as a publishing co-op, something like Cahuenga Press, only instead of a dozen people …
That’s how long I lasted. I wanted to try writing a post every weekday, and I could barely keep it up for half a month. Megan always talks about trying to set attainable goals, and I think I did a bad job. How do the real bloggers do it? Don’t you get tired? Don’t you …
There are definitely more important things to talk about, like continuing the discussion on gender in poetry, but what the heck, let’s take a turn toward the self-important. No one’s going to be interested in this, except me and maybe my wife. Last month, Robert Peake turned me onto Wordle.net — a really neat website …
James Longenbach was my first poetry professor, and probably my best.  He’s also hands-down the best writer on poetry today, in my opinion — writing eloquently not just with a passion for poetry, but with compassion for it, too. If I ever teach a creative writing class, The Art of the Poetic Line will be …
Swamped with no time for a proper post. You’ll know why soon, but in the meantime I wanted to put this up. It’s made up the background art for this website for a couple months, but the cover for American Fractal is finally official. The breathtakingly intricate image is by Stacy Reed. The big thumbnail …