Ruth Graham on Plagiarism Scandals, Harvard Poetry Professor Herbie Hancock, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
1.13.14

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:

Harvard has named jazz musician and composer Herbie Hancock its 2014 Norton Professor of Poetry. In decades past, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and composer Leonard Bernstein have held the position. (Rolling Stone)

In an essay for the Poetry Foundation, book critic Ruth Graham ponders the reasons behind the many plagiarism scandals that occurred in 2013.

Jamie Iannone—the Barnes & Noble executive who oversaw its Nook and e-book business—has departed the bookstore company for Wal-Mart, where he'll head online operations for the Sam’s Club warehouse. (Wall Street Journal)

Rebecca Onion reports that the University of California Press has made over seven hundred e-books freely available, including work by Vladimir Nabokov and Philip K. Dick. (Open Culture)

Considering the affairs of Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, and others, the Express suggests that marrying a poet may not be the best idea.

In light of Rebecca Mead’s new book My Life in ­Middlemarch, critic Kathryn Schulz details her relationship with George Eliot’s masterpiece. (Vulture)

Brain Pickings showcases the audio of William Faulkner’s 1954 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.