Kevin Young's new poetry collection, Jelly Roll, is about love and losing love and then letting go of that struggle…subjects often found at the heart of the blues, an influence that informs his new work in both structure and feeling.
January/February 2003
Features
A Short Distance to the Blues: A Conversation With Kevin Young
A profile of poet Kevin Young on the occasion of his new collection, Jelly Roll.
How to Leave and Where to Stay: Traveling With Reetika Vazirani
Poet Reetika Vazirani often writes about feeling, in her words, "unhomed." No wonder. The author of the aptly titled World Hotel has moved twenty-two times in the past eighteen years. But throughout her peregrinations, poetry has been her...
Everything Follows: An Interview With Helon Habila
Helon Habila read novels as a boy to shelter himself from the brutal reality of his country’s political instability. Now, the author of Waiting for an Angel believes his generation of Nigerian novelists should help change that reality.
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News and Trends
Of Love and Defamation in China
British novelist Hong Ying faces a "defamation of the dead" lawsuit in China for her book K: The Art of Love, a fictional portrayal of the love affair between Bloomsbury poet Julian Bell and the celebrated Chinese writer and painter Ling Shuhua.
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Literary MagNet
Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features Verse, Fence, McSweeney's, Open City, Orchid, Two Lines, and the Missouri Review.
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Literary Archives Rerecord History
Naropa University has established the Naropa Audio Preservation and Access Project to archive the program's vast holdings of recorded readings, lectures, panel discussions, and workshops.
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Poetry at the Crossroads of America
Last spring I embarked on a modest project. Having photocopied 10 of my favorite poems—by poets living and dead, from several different countries—I stapled them into an anthology and stood on a sidewalk in Times Square, where I read the poems aloud. I had no other gimmicks and no amplification. I did this on several occasions, always bringing a friend along for moral support and to assist in handing out free copies of the anthology, which I titled "Antidote."
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Anatomy of Awards
Literary contests award $6.8 million in 2002.
The Practical Writer
First: ZZ Packer: Back-Story Behind the Buzz
A profile of debut fiction writer ZZ Packer.
The Two-Book Contract: Life Preserver or Straitjacket?
The pros and cons of signing a two-book deal.
The Literary Life
Imperative: The Professionalization of Poetry, Part 1
The history and impact of the professionalization of poetry.
Aesthetically Speaking: The Emergence and Survival of Callaloo
The history of Callaloo and a conversation with founding editor Charles Henry Rowell.