Fritz Swanson has graciously donated time, talent and materials to create a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind edition of Charles Baxter’s poem “Please Marry Me” for The Great Write Off and The State of the Book. The top five FWR fundraisers for The Great Write Off will get one of only 100 copies of the poem handmade with care by Fritz.
Poetry—it isn’t just for poets! In her latest column, Katie Umans recommends straying from fiction with the following books: Kingdom Animalia, Something in the Potato Room, Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie, and Lucky Fish.
“There are people who talk about themselves in the first person, people who talk about themselves in the third person, and people who don’t talk about themselves at all,” says a character in A Meaning for Wife. Yet poet Mark Yakich’s debut novel is narrated–quite successfully–in the controversial second-person.
Last week we featured Fimbul-Winter, by Debra Allbery, as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Ashlie F. Harper (@ashliefharper) margie at justbooks (@justbooks) David (@notsolinear) To claim your free copy, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us!
When I was an MFA student at the University of Maryland, Stanley Plumly said two things about my poetry that have stuck with me and shaped not only how I think about my writing process but also how I approach teaching creative writing. In one conference, he asked, Will you ever write a ten-syllable line? Stanley Plumly is fond of John Keats’s work, so maybe he did want me to write in ten-syllable lines, but the question was designed to force to me think about formal choices I was making. My initial, silent response was that I was experimenting with […]
Ever hear of knitbombing? Well, now, there’s poetry bombing. Galleycat reports: Miami artist Agustina Woodgate illustrated the art of “poetry bombing,” sewing snippets of poems into thrift store clothes. Here’s a video: Poetry is so well suited for this, but can you imagine fiction bombing? Little snippets of short stories or knockout lines from novels hidden… anywhere?
In the final essay in our series on criticism, Keith Taylor recalls the pleasure of a “chance to review a new collection of poems in a place where several thousand people might read it, and to actually be paid something for our labors.” Has the Internet created room for “a more expansive tone to the discussion of contemporary poetry” – or made an already diminishing realm more clubby? Taylor’s experience as both poet and reviewer reveals the shaping potential of creating art and criticism.
