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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

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

Books to prevent lit fits?

There are many lit-minded apps and podcasts these days to help us with our seemingly unquenchable thirst to carry all manner of media with us wherever we go. Few of these outlets are as steadfast in their desire to have you only connect via portable device as CellStories. This story-a-day page can only be read on your iPhone, iTouch or similar carry-along cellular doohickeys. Take a look inside for their whys and hows.

One of our mandates for 2010 is to keep an eye out for places where technology and writing interface in meaningful ways. At the Atwater Library and Computer Centre in Montreal (Canada’s oldest lending library!) they’ve been archiving readings for their Poetry Project since 2005. One recent reader was Brent MacLaine reading from Athena Becomes a Swallow. Come inside and have a listen…