Charles Wright

Two new poems. 

MFA Programs

For any of you thinking about getting an MFA in CW. 

Dear Camera

Very cool new journal.

museo del prado

The absolutely phenomenal Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain, has collaborated with Google Earth to create photos of some of the museum's most well-known masterpieces. The resolution on these paintings is tremendous; you can see every brushstroke and tear drop as clearly as if you were standing in front of the painting. I went to the Prado last fall, but seeing these images so closely and clearly is a completely different level of experience altogether. If you have ANY interest in art, please look at this masterpiece of 21st century technology.

Coldfront

If you like reviews of new poetry collections, check this out.  Mark Bibbin's piece on good music is very nice. 

Paul Otremba

"Haute Cuisine"

inspired

"All poets' wives have

Rotten lives

Their husbands look at

Them like knives."

-Delmore Schwartz, American Poet

I've always wondered: do truly great poets (or writers or what have you) have lives full of inspirational people and events, or are they simply skilled at turning the humdrum of everyday existence into something extraordinary? I don't mean that in a manipulative, melodramatic way, but in an elevated-perception kind of way, where poets are gifted (cursed?) with experiencing their world through the extremes that most people comfortable with shades of gray can't seem to fathom. Maybe a few poets are adept at stirring up trouble/inspiration, and maybe a few more are just lucky and trouble/inspiration comes to them, but I don't really think that's the case for the majority. 

I want to (and in some sense, must) believe that there is a gift. Some are born with it and some may learn it, but all poets have it. It's more than finding something quirky and lacing it with pretty words; it's uncovering other realms entirely, partially for the benefit of those who cannot see them but with help.

Last day to Submit

Today is the LAST day to submit to eleven40seven for the spring 2009 edition!

All submissions need to be in by midnight (but we'll be flexible as long as it's in before saturday morning) 

Please go to the How to Submit page of the current web companion. 

While your there look around and enjoy!

Thanks and I can't wait to read your work!

Release day

Alan Moore on Watchman, etc.

Excerpt:
"If you approach comics as a poor relation to film, you are left with a movie that does not move, has no soundtrack and lacks the benefit of having a recognizable movie star in the lead role."

Notes from the Bunker & Susan Parr

Dear Readers,

Submit to eleven40seven! Do it, do it now! Also, just in time for spring break, Susan Parr's first collection of poems, PACIFIC SHOOTER, arrived in the mail. It is a great book--wickedly smart, a roller-coaster of sonics and thrills. Check it out. (Full disclosure: I did write a blurb for this book, so I'm biased)

FORMAL MANNERS

To be read in the voice of Björk

Imagine the wail a belly constructs—


some dim yell, amped into yodel.


Quick—it comes up in the pipe—


it jostles the throat.

 

As it erupts, imagine the wail 


consumed—a bygone polyploidy, 


spiraling back into its author—


cancelled bruit shooting downslope 


into the stacks; fading to an eerie

 

ciceronian babble—to a companionable


music, written on the wet pancreas.

 

This is the torrent and the absorbent craft.


__

 

THIS IS NOT A LEMON

 

But its representation. An ephemera,


Scoop of one, cool, supine on a plate.


Let's say winter had its way with the lemon.


It pipes up now and then like a sequin


When the spoon catches light, catches


Sugar-and lemon ice; shows


The surprisingly green frail face.

 

This is not lemon: though lemonish,


Its color is wet—yet less so in the melting


Facets—an exasperating lemonlessness—


Disappearing fact. Taste a bite.


If that's lemon inside the ice—


Why is it lime-like in this light?