Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:
Today is Bloomsday, the date on which the events in James Joyce’s 1922 modernist novel Ulysses occurred. More than sixty countries worldwide participate in various Bloomsday celebrations, which include recreating Leopold Bloom’s June 16, 1904 itinerary, and performing marathon readings of Ulysses. If you want to celebrate by reading the work on your own, Open Culture provides a handy article detailing “everything you need to enjoy reading James Joyce’s Ulysses on Bloomsday.” (NPR)
The Gifu City Library in Japan plans to break the world record for the most books toppled in a domino fashion. The book domino event, planned for July 12, has received some criticism from people who feel using books as “toys” is disrespectful, though the city government insists the event intends to promote Gifu as a “book city.” (Electric Literature)
“Poetry is one of the largest, most beautiful, most intimate and most effective ways of participating [in public life].” Newly appointed poet laureate of the United States Juan Felipe Herrera speaks with the Guardian about how he came to love poetry, the influence of Allen Ginsberg, and more.
At BOMB, Dan Duray interviews fiction writer Joshua Cohen about his new novel, Book of Numbers, which was just released last week.
In this week’s installment of the New York Times Bookends series, Anna Holmes and Thomas Mallon and discuss whether self-loathing is a requirement for writers. “I do think that writing demands a certain amount of self-awareness, and that self-awareness and self-loathing can be two sides of the same coin,” writes Holmes.
Over at the London Review of Books, poet and novelist Ben Lerner considers the reasons for apparent mass contempt for contemporary poetry: “Poems can, of course, succeed in any number of less grand ambitions than the ones I’m describing (they can be funny or lovely or offer solace…to certain audiences at certain times; they can play a role in constituting a community; and so on), but I’m attempting to account for a persistent if mutable feeling that our moment’s poems are bad, that we hate them or at least strongly dislike them, and that it’s their fucking fault.”
A children’s book written by a young Queen Victoria has been published for the first time. The Royal Collection published The Adventures of Alice Laselles last week. It is believed that Victoria wrote the story in 1829 when she was just ten years old. (NBC News)
