David Orr investigates the day jobs of some modern poets, and notes “the university job is a relatively recent development in Anglo-American poetry.” Indeed, as this playful illustration from Incidental Comics makes clear, poets have engaged in a wide array of salaried jobs – from pediatricians to bank clerks to diplomats. Previously, we took a look at writers and their day jobs, too.
Now we’re all ‘friends,’ there is no love but Like,
A semi-demi goddess, something like
A reality-TV star look-alike,
Named Simile or Me Two. So we like
In order to be liked. It isn’t like
There’s Love or Hate now. Even plain ‘dislike’
Is frowned on: there’s no button for it. Like
Is something you can quantify: each ‘like’
You gather’s almost something money-like,
Token of virtual support. ‘Please like
This page to stamp out hunger.’
“An Ode to Air” by Carolee Bennett
We’re in the thick of National Poetry Month now, and Tweetspeak has a full round-up of ways to participate online. In particular, we think the Virginia Quarterly Review’s “Instapoem” series is especially rad. (Gee, wonder why.)
![“Faced with such misery, a little spiritual compromise doesn’t look like such a bad thing. That [Charles] Baudelaire was incapable of such compromise was his undoing and our good fortune. Like a blasphemous Jesus, he took on our worst sins — pride, sloth, envy, lechery — and turned them into art.”
The Poet Who Died for Our Sins: On Charles Baudelaire by Stephen Akey](http://25.media.tumblr.com/b25cb408a6b72957ae2b649f0073d6b1/tumblr_ml2bejMmbJ1r6xvfko1_500.jpg)
“Faced with such misery, a little spiritual compromise doesn’t look like such a bad thing. That [Charles] Baudelaire was incapable of such compromise was his undoing and our good fortune. Like a blasphemous Jesus, he took on our worst sins — pride, sloth, envy, lechery — and turned them into art.”
The Poet Who Died for Our Sins: On Charles Baudelaire by Stephen Akey
The figure of Baudelaire – dandy, rebel, enfant terrible, hysterical hypochondriac — compels such fascination that it’s almost possible to forget he wrote a few poems too.
The 3 C’s of Miami
Café con leche to watch the sunrise,
Cafecito to watch the afternoon monsoon.
Cortadito to dance under the moon.
That’s so Miami.
The organizers of this year’s O, Miami Poetry Festival are holding an online poetry contest entitled “That’s So Miami.” To participate, submit a poem that begins or ends with the phrase, “that’s so Miami.” Entries – which can be culled from both Twitter and Instagram – are accepted in English and Spanish (duh), and submissions are posted daily on the organization’s new Tumblr. For a rundown of the festival’s other April events, check out their Facebook page.
You can listen to U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey read her poem “Enlightenment” for the Virginia Festival of the Book.
I stink of ripe otter. Shit. Yay. A sale.
Reeking of Spanish rope unlaid.
A bridal fabric denuded in Korea.
Goering, on cue, sends no letter inserting Bermuda.
