Here are a trio of pieces for you to pass along at work today in order to seem quirky, cutting edge, thoughtful… or just like you spend too much time online. Wired’s rundown of The 10 Most Absurd Science Paper Titles… A new Edgar Allen Poe collection by Eric Mongeon… and Geist’s Artist and Writer Fund. Happy forwarding.
We do it when we’re happy, when we’re sad, when we’re angry. Or maybe we don’t do it at all because we did it too much. Without a doubt, many of us who do it or did it know it has more than a little to with writing. It’s the Matrix Drinking Dossier, and we want your stories and poems! After all, brewmeisters in monasteries in Belgium, distillers in, um, distilleries in Scotland and barons in the ‘Bottle-Your-Own-Wine’ liquor stores in Saskatchewan deserve this. And so do you!
It’s estimated that a new poetry journal is released every day, and in 2010 alone, more than 100,000 new poems will be published. But, it’s not reader demand that’s fueling this escalating trend. Instead, the vast majority of new poems and poets will never find much of an audience for their work. To talk about the new math of poetry is David Alpaugh, a poet and a writer.
Elaine Grant/New Hampshire Public Radio
The Acorn-Plantos Award for Peoples Poetry is awarded annually to a Canadian poet, based on a book published in the previous calendar year. The work should follow in the tradition of Acorn, Livesay, Purdy, Plantos and others by being accessible to all people in its use of language and image. The award is open to any living poet who is a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant. The work may be entered by the poet or the publisher. The award itself honours the poet.
The award consists of a cheque for $500.00 CDN and a medallion.
The deadline for entries published in 2009 is June 30, 2010, received.
Here are a few links for a slow Friday at work: The New Yorker has a few fun flash puzzles of their covers to shuffle. The Poetry Ark is a multi-part contest that involves round by round voting with prizes and an anthology at the end. McSweeneys presents the 24th Existential Olympics, because life is… you know.
With Tim Burton’s surely zany and eye-popping Alice in Wonderland opening this weekend you may want to refresh your Lewis Carroll battery packs. One way to do so is subscribe to Daily Lit’s free installment service that sends you, via either e-mail or RSS feed, Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland so you can take a short reading break every day. Alice’s adventures come in 37 installments… check inside how to get started.
Most people, when they think about it, can point to signs that have failed them: the hospital complex that felt like a labyrinth or the exit they always almost miss. But the truth is that signage today is far better than it’s been at any other point in history. A century ago, sign design wasn’t a profession to speak of; the signs that guided riders and pedestrians (there weren’t many drivers yet) tended to be informal and ad hoc. As the automobile took off, the world found it needed traffic engineers, and it was these men and women who were the first to think seriously about sign systems.
Julia Turner/Slate.com
In an open letter posted on its website, the financially troubled Toronto Women’s Bookstore has thanked supporters for their donations, and announced they have made enough money to keep the store operating. Unfortunately, all the media attention their fundraising garnered has caused suppliers to either cancel their accounts or put them on prepaid terms. The letter explains that the store has been unable to reestablish credit with suppliers as a result and won’t be able to fulfill course orders for textbooks, which make up to 75% of the store’s annual revenue. From the letter:
Zoe Whittall/Quill & Quire blog
