Article Archive

Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.

The Top Fifty MFA Programs in the United States: A Comprehensive Guide

by
Seth Abramson
11.1.09

In this excerpted version of his article from the November/December 2009 issue, contributor Seth Abramson reveals the methodology behind his ranking of the top fifty MFA programs in the United States, plus a ranking of the additional eighty-eight full-residency programs. For the full article and additional data for each program, including size, duration, cost of living, teaching load, and curriculum focus, see the November/December 2009 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

With so many good books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Victor LaValle's Big Machine and Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply, as the starting point for a closer look at these new and noteworthy titles.

The Invisible Library

by
Alex Dimitrov
9.1.09
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The Invisible Library, the blog that invites readers to submit the titles of unwritten books they’ve discovered in their own reading, served as the primary inspiration behind the Invisible Library exhibition, which ran from June 12 to July 12 at the Tenderpixel Gallery in London.

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World’s Largest Thesaurus Published

by
Adrian Versteegh
9.1.09

This month Oxford University Press is publishing the world's most comprehensive thesaurus. The two-volume, 4,448-page Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is not only twice the size of Roget's version, the current standard, but it also lays claim to being the first historical thesaurus compiled for any language.

A New Genre in Chinese Fiction

by
Stephen Morison Jr.
9.1.09

A new genre of fiction known as the Officialdom novel has become increasingly popular in China. Fans claim that the novels offer rich entertainment while providing valuable insights into the byzantine system of manners and etiquette that is the key to success at white-collar jobs in China, but the trend might signal a much more significant shift in the culture—one that goes beyond matters of literary taste.

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 Annalemma Magazine, Oxford American, Ninth Letter, Opium Magazine, the Iowa Review, Slice Magazine, Poet Lore, Fence, and Electric Literature.

 

Can Flarf Ever Be Taken Seriously?

by
Shell Fischer
7.1.09

Almost a decade after its creation, the experimental poetry movement Flarf—in which poets prowl the Internet using random word searches, e-mail the bizarre results to one another, then distill the newly found phrases into poems that are often as disturbing as they are hilarious—is showing signs of having cleared a spot among the ranks of legitimate art forms.

Bennington Band Honors Late Poet

by
A. N. Devers
7.1.09

A group of writing instructors and students who over the years formed a ragtag band during late-night impromptu jam sessions at the Bennington Writing Seminars released their first CD earlier this year. Titled Let's Doghouse: A Tribute to Liam Rector, the compilation serves as a memorial to the founding director of the Writing Seminars, a poet, who passed away two years ago.

Summer Stimulus

by
Kevin Nance
7.1.09

For many writers groups and nonprofit literary organizations battered by the recession, help is on the way. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was signed into law by president Barack Obama in February, included fifty million dollars in arts funding that is being allocated by the National Endowment for the Arts.

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