The Hellman’s Virgin
Authoring Change
The Boston Globe profiles Daniel Coquillette, co-author of the first comprehensive history of Harvard Law School. “Deeming the previous attempts lackluster, Coquillette and Bruce Kimball resolved to produce an honest, critical look at Harvard Law School’s founding — and its oftentimes bigoted history.” His book inspired students to take action to retire the school’s crest.
New from Claudia Rankine
Experience Claudia Rankine’s sound and fury in a new poem in The New Yorker. Pair with a piece on why Americans love poetry, but not poetry books.
Banned Books Week
Comic of the Week: Over at Electric Lit, check out Grant Snider’s comic on why we ban books. We look at The Lorax and other dangerous books in honor of Banned Books Week.
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Everything is Political
Recommended Reading: Amy King, Shane McCrae, Ken Chen, and fifteen other poets and activists on political poetry and literary activism.
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Twitter’s Poetics, Twitter’s Bots
As Teju Cole demonstrated with his real-time ghazals (one, two, and three) this past week, Twitter is a medium ripe for linguistic experimentation. And far from being the exclusive domain of human beings, the social network can also produce “found poetry” at the behest of computer programs – a practice I recently wrote about for The Bygone Bureau. But who’s behind these Twitter bots? Over at The Boston Globe, they check in with Darius Kazemi, the 30-year-old programmer who’s made some of the most-loved accounts out there.
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