A while back, we reviewed an anthology of work by American poets laureate–that is, those appointed by the President to serve the entire United States. But there are 45 currently-serving state poets laureate, and thousands of city, county, and other poets laureate as well. What exactly do they do?
Your friendly neighborhood poet laureate
The Pleasure of Eavesdropping
Recommended Listening: Poet Rachel Zucker has just launched Commonplace, a bi-monthly podcast featuring conversations with poets (and other people) about quotidian objects, experiences, anecdotes, advice, and obsessions.
Writerly Advice
We’ve covered the Atlantic series By Heart a number of times before. In the latest edition, Angela Flournoy makes a case for writing about what you don’t know. Pair with Toni Jordan’s Millions essay on “the ideas behind fiction.”
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One Award To Rule Them All
Over at Book Riot, Jeff O’Neal’s asking readers to vote for their favorite literary award… based on the quality of each one’s backlist.
Tuesday New Release Day: Sayles, Mieville, Theroux, Habila, Drabble, Donoghue, Cronin
The huge, McSweeney’s-published, John Sayles novel A Moment in the Sun has been getting great reviews. It’s now out. Also new this week is China Mieville’s Embassytown, reviewed here today; Paul Theroux’s exploration of the genre of travel writing, The Tao of Travel; prizewinning Nigerian author Helon Habila’s new novel Oil on Water; and A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, the complete stories of Margaret Drabble, recently written up by Joyce Carol Oates in the New Yorker. New in paperback are a pair of Millions Hall of Famers, Emma Donoghue’s Room and Justin Cronin’s The Passage.
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87 Years Delayed: New Zora Neale Hurston
New York Magazine has an excerpt up from Zora Neale Hurston‘s long-lost manuscript, Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo, the first-person account of Cudjo Lewis, the only living survivor of the final slave ship to land in America. Barracoon will finally, 87 years later, be published next week.