David Meltzer interviewed renowned Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti for the Poetry Foundation. At 93 years of age, Ferlinghetti still contends that “the real popular poets of America” are not the people writing verse for poetry collections, but rather the folk musicians and folksingers. “A lot of folksingers’ poems are greater than the printed poems!” Ferlinghetti explains. Evidently the American Academy of Arts and Letters agrees: Bob Dylan recently became the first rock musician ever inducted into its ranks.
Ferlinghetti on Folksingers
A New Kind of Book Review
A new kind of book review: 5 artists interpret and critique literature through works of visual art.
Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced
The shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 has been announced. This list features Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo, and three other books by Spanish and Norwegian authors.
Commence Griping Now
The first images from Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina motion picture adaptation are now online. Behold Keira Knightley as Anna, and Jude Law as Alexei! The film will release in the UK on September 7th.
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Nicholson Baker and Friendly’s
Nicholson Baker talks about why he does so much writing at Friendly’s, a fast food chain that soon may exist only in its descriptions.
First Cloud Atlas, Now This
Apparently David Magee, the screenwriter behind the Life of Pi movie, declared the book “unfilmable” before he was asked to adapt it.