There are poet laureates for all sorts of things these days – Queens Borough, San Mateo County, Twitter, you name it – but this is the first time I’ve heard of someone being dubbed “poet laureate of the river.”
Kenneth Lawrence Beaudoin, poet laureate of the river
A Man in Monte Carlo
It will take you longer to read this Curiosity and click through to its attached link than it would for you to simply read Anton Chekhov’s shortest-ever short story in its entirety.
Against Wunderkinds
Recommended reading: Alexander Chee's essay "Against Wunderkinds."
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Zahar Prilepin Profile
What makes Russia's Zahar Prilepin similar to Ernest Hemingway? The Daily Beast's Owen Matthews takes a look at the nationalist writer.
Can’t We Go Back to Page One
A memoir by Winnie-the-Pooh author A.A. Milne shows a writer frustrated at how his creation undermined his adult literary cred. Republished 70 years after it went out of print, It's Too Late Now reveals a trapped Milne wishing for more control over his own narrative: “I wanted to escape from [children’s books] as I had once wanted to escape from Punch; as I have always wanted to escape. In vain. England expects the writer, like the cobbler, to stick to his last.”
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John Ashbery Poem Spans Bridge in Minneapolis
There's a pedestrian bridge spanning Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis that features a John Ashbery poem written on its steel beams. This is a fabulous slideshow of photos showing the poem. Via been thinking.
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