America's Great Friend Saudi Arabia Will Whip a Poet For His Poetry
The good news is that Saudi Arabia has changed its mind about executing a poet for “the contents of his poetry book.” Then there is the bad news.
Michelle Obama on Maya Angelou: "She Celebrated Black Women's Beauty"
At today's memorial service for poet Dr. Maya Angelou, former president Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama were among the guests who paid tribute to the legendary figure. The First Lady talked poignantly about her friend and the influence Angelou's poem "Phenomenal Woman" had on her as a child.
An account of a 1968 poets' brawl by Charles Simic at the NYRB today just goes to show that even great artists like to do a little hair-pulling from time to time: "As soon as the fight started, Allen Ginsberg went down on his knees and began chanting some Buddhist prayer for peace and harmony among all living…
Seamus Heaney, Poet and Nobelist, Dead at 74
Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet awarded the Nobel prize in 1995, died on Friday morning in Dublin hospital. He was 74.
World's Best Twitter User Jose Canseco Mysteriously Disappears From Twitter
A brilliant neutron star winked out of existence today, when grammar-challenged baseball player Jose Canseco abruptly shut down his wonderful Twitter account. But "Jose Canseco" is not currently trending on Twitter, probably because anyone who would be tweeting about it is on the floor weeping.
Nobel Prize-Winning Polish Poet Wislawa Szymborska Dead at 88
Wislawa Szymborska, the 1996 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, died Wednesday at her home in Krakow, Poland, from lung cancer. She published fewer than 400 poems in her lifetime and was known as a recluse despite being Poland's most famous poet. Her verse was loved for its simplicity and sense of humor and…
Dr. Tyrone Hayes: Biologist, Cock-Fixated Megalomaniac Email Addict
Yesterday we introduced you to Tyrone Hayes, the UC-Berkeley biologist who expresses his opposition to the herbicide atrazine with shouty, rap lyric-quoting emails to its manufacturer, Syngenta. Well—there are many more Tyrone Hayes emails where those came from!
Jim Carroll, Author
Jim Carroll, the former drug addict turned prolific poet and writer of The Basketball Diaries, died of a heart attack on Friday at his residence in Manhattan. He was 60.
