It was probably inevitable that Rap Genius would spawn Poetry Genius, but it was not so inevitable that Junot Díaz would make an appearance on the latter. On Saturday, Díaz annotated a number of passages from his own The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, including a footnote where he says he went “buckwild.”
A Note from the Author
Poet Laureate (Again)
“Her exchanges with Americans in small towns and rural communities are inspiring an appreciation of poetry and history – and remind us that poetry has value for all of our lives.” The Library of Congress appointed Tracy K. Smith to a second term as the 22nd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2018-2019. For her second term, Smith edited an anthology called American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, which will be published by Graywolf Press in association with the Library of Congress. Pair with: our review of Smith’s memoir, Ordinary Light.
Prejudice and the Grotesque
Dave Griffith writes for The Paris Review about reading Flannery O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person,” an immigrant story set in the South, in the age of Islamophobia. Pair with Nick Ripatrazone’s Millions essay on teaching and learning from O’Connor.
The Odyssey, Mapped
An interactive map created by Gisèle Mounzer tracks the winding, often circuitous journey taken by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.
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Alice Oswald Protests Prize
Award-winning poet Alice Oswald has pulled out of prestigious poetry award the TS Eliot prize in protest over its sponsorship by an investment company. Oswald’s words: “I think poetry should be questioning not endorsing such institutions.”
Shellacked Decorative Vegetables
Halloween might be over, but the season of freakishly large decorative gourds lives on. Here’s a fascinating essay from The Toast on how to raise enormous pumpkins–county fair, here we come.
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Larissa Pham and the Gift of Being Seen
Larissa Pham discusses her new book, Pop Song, and shares her hope that it resonates with Asian women who do not often see themselves in writing.
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Joseph Roth’s Letters
“Among the 457 letters in Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, there is not one love letter,” begins Stefany Anne Goldberg’s review of the author’s collected–and often outright misanthropic–correspondence.
Teju Cole’s also done the same thing with the first page or so of Open City: http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Teju-cole-open-city-excerpt-lyrics