At Slate, Dan Kois talks to Maggie Smith and Patricia Lockwood about what happens when your poem goes viral online. “The strangest thing about having a viral poem,” says Lockwood, “is that you are framed in reference to it afterwards to a degree that feels ensmallifying. It feels a little like you’re placed into a box.” Smith, author of the poem “Good Bones” and the recently published Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change, says, “What I’ll always be known for is writing this poem about how bad things are, and maybe they could be better, but they’re bad. Every time my mentions tick up, I know to check the news because something bad has happened.”
Maggie Smith and Patricia Lockwood on Viral Poems
Dubai: The Richest Playground on Earth
The third installment in Richard Bentley’s sweet Dubai timelapse video series is live for your viewing pleasure. (And here are parts one and two in case you missed them.)
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Barrelhouse’s Wrestling Issue
Barrelhouse recently revamped their website, but that’s not even the most exciting news out of the D.C.-based literary outfit this week. No, sir. The most exciting news is that the magazine’s newest online issue is “focused on the theme of 1980s professional wrestling.” The list of contributors includes Aaron Burch, Matthew Duffus, and Jeannine Mjoseth.
The World’s Most Powerful Editor
“I think you are abusing your power, and I find it hard to believe that you have thought it through thoroughly.” Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, has published a front-page letter to Mark Zuckerberg after Facebook censored an iconic image from the Vietnam war. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a naked nine-year-old Kim Phúc running away from a napalm attack was deleted from a post about seven images “that changed the history of warfare.”
Tatjana Soli, author of The Lotus Eaters, wrote for us about the legacy of that infamous photo a few years back.
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A Book’s Debut Amidst a Pandemic
Amy Klein discusses being a debut author during the coronavirus quarantine, as bookstores close and events are canceled for the public's safety.
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Batuman in Conversation
For Angelenos: Elif Batuman will be reading from The Possessed tonight at 7:00 at the LAPL Central Library. A conversation with LA Times Books Editor David Ulin follows the reading. More information and reservations here (tickets are free).
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“A Native Son” in Ferguson
“It is early August. A black man is shot by a white policeman. And the effect on the community is of “a lit match in a tin of gasoline.” No, this is not Ferguson, MO.” Laila Lalami reports for NPR on rereading James Baldwin‘s Notes of a Native Son in the context of Ferguson. Pair with Teju Cole‘s essay in The New Yorker about rereading Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village.”
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