Debra Allbery on Poetry Daily

If you missed two poems by Debra Allbery from Poetry Daily this weekend, you can still view them here:

http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14907

CORRECTION: NYU Bookstore Reading Tomorrow at 7pm

Don't forget to come to the NYU Bookstore at 726 Broadway at 7PM to hear Priscilla Becker read for the first time from her new book, Stories That Listen, along with Paul Legault and Timothy Donnelly.

NOTE THE NEW TIME: 7PM

http://www.bookstores.nyu.edu/events/index.html/#new

Priscilla Becker, Tim Donnelly, and Paul Legault at the NYU Bookstore

Come to New Poetry Night at the new NYU Bookstore at 726 Broadway on Wednesday, October 27th at 6pm to hear Four Way Books author Priscilla Becker read for the first time from her new book, along with Tim Donnelly and Paul Legault.

Timothy Donnelly, The Cloud Corporation (Wave Book)
Timothy Donnelley is poetry editor for Boston Review and teaches at Columbia University; this is his second collection of poetry.

Paul Legault, The Madeleine Poems (Omnidawn)

Paul Legault holds an MFA in creative writing and a BFA in screenwriting. He is the winner of the Omnidawn Poetry Prize, and his poems have been published in theDenver Quarterly, Pleiades, and other journals.

Priscilla Becker, Stories That Listen (Four Way Books)

Priscilla Becker, whose first book of poems, Internal West, won The Paris Review Book Prize, has written an astonishingly precise second collection, Stories That Listen. These poems attempt to come to terms with absences personal and global.

http://www.bookstores.nyu.edu/events/index.html/#new

Belated Heavens Reviewed in today's Image Journal newsletter

Belated Heavens by Daniel Tobin

In “An Orange Tree in Redlands,” one of the poems in Daniel Tobin’s just-released fifth volume of poetry, Belated Heavens, he writes: “Time’s an eye / that remakes the world just by looking.” If it is true that any observation changes that which is being perceived, “remakes” it, then all artists literally change the world, and perhaps Tobin more than most, for his observations are of an uncommon depth and precision. Under his eye, an Easter connect-the-dots puzzle forming the words “He is Risen” carries the weight of a heavenly sign, swept by the wind into the hedge lining his lawn. A mouse spotted the day after his mother’s death becomes a “fleet-footed messenger from the afterlife,” who came at night “in stealth to whisper the momentous, / then, turning back, thought better of it.” A wailing siren is a “coroner-crooner.” Throughout the book, Tobin probes the portentous, but never in the heavy-handed way of a zealot. Sure, God is in these poems, as is Mary, and Daniel, whose “best self longed for God,” but you will also find Babylonian gods, Koko the Gorilla, and “The Great Cow,” who can heal afflictions with one great, rough lick. Tobin’s sense of form is just as diverse as his cast—Belated Heavens runs the formal gamut from free verse to paradelle (a strict form invented by Billy Collins to poke fun at modern poets who employ strict forms, intended as a joke but now quite popular in its own right). The paradelle is titled “Prayer,” and according to the strictures of the form, doubles its opening lines: “There is something to be praised in repetition, / There is something to be praised in repetition...,” and with that, Tobin has tidily combined tradition and innovation, while echoing liturgical style. Do not miss the culmination of these queries into the nature of life and what lies beyond it in “Heaven,” the penultimate poem in the book, in which heavens of various traditions are considered, and longed for, although at the end, the poet settles for an eternity that is “only a short walk together / to that still, small place where memory is healed.”

Ignatz Announced as Finalist for the National Book Award

We are excited to announce that Monica Youn is a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award for her poetry collection, Ignatz, published in March 2010 by Four Way Books. Congratulations Monica!!

You can view the complete list of poetry and fiction finalists here: http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2010.html

In Case You Missed It!!

In case you were out celebrating the long holiday weekend and missed the Poetry Daily selection on Saturday, it was our own Meg Kearney! See Meg's poem "1970" in the Poetry Daily archives via the link below:

http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14892

Upcoming Readings with Farrah Field!

Venice! San Diego! Tucson! Marfa! Stop in and hear Farrah Field read if you're nearby.

Oct. 8th with Jared White, Maureen Alsop, and Louise Mathias, 7:30 p.m., Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Bl., Venice, CA

Oct. 9th with Jared White, 7 p.m., Agitprop Gallery, 2837 University Avenue in North Park, San Diego, CA

Oct. 10th or 11th with Jared White, 6 p.m., Casa Libre en la Solana, 228 N. 4th Avenue #2, Tucson, AZ

Oct. 14th with Jared White, 6 p.m., Marfa Book Company, 105 South Highland, Marfa, TX