Fourteen on Form: Conversations with Poets is an interesting book consisting of interviews with some of the most influential poets of the late twentieth century.

I enjoy reading interviews with poets and learning about their thought processes and about the poets themselves.

W.D. Snodgrasswrites, “Well, in my opinion, the poet should offer readers something they can’t get anywhere else….I think this is crucial for the writer, and the problem is that a new idea doesn’t turn up more than once every three hundred years, and once it’s stated, it’s not very interesting to simply restate it….So it seems to me, that the best way to make an “old” idea useful and “new” and interesting is for the writer to find a new set of details- that reaffirm the concept, and that create a new way to arrive at the familiar conclusion. The only other possibility is to create a new style, and, since I believe that style equals personality, this will also individualize the idea in the same way that a unique set of details will. This is also where meter and form come in, because it’s in the unique application of those stylistic choices and their arrangements into language that personality and emotion can express themselves. And it’s also how the writer can offer readers something that’s different – something that’s worth their while.”


http://www.amazon.com/Fourteen-Form-Conversations-William-Baer/dp/1604732563/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293493932&sr=8-1

Currently, I am reading The Boat, a book of short stories by Nam Le. I just read "Cartegena", an incredible story set in the barrios of Colombia. I am looking forward to reading the other stories in the book! The next story I will be reading is the title story, "The Boat".

http://www.namleonline.com/book.html

I am currently reading Ardor by Karen An-hwei Lee, a wonderful poet and person with a voice like the ethereal music of a harp.

Here are some lines from her book:

"A man who desired to make love
Desired to hear the sound of tearing silk
Emerald silk and watered silk, old sienna
Women lined up on the street
No matter the original dye, indigo
Nervous quality of love
Tearing open error..."


For more information on Ardor or to buy the book on Amazon, please click here
http://www.amazon.com/ardor-Karen-hwei-Lee/dp/1932195696

I came across these interesting quotes by Sinclair Lewis -

"I invite other writers to consider the fact that by accepting the prizes and approval of these vague institutions we are admitting their authority, publicly confirming them of the final judges of literary excellence, and I inquire whether any prize is worth that subservience."
            --Sinclair Lewis, “Letter to the Pulitzer Prize Committee”


Arrowsmith was awarded the 1926 Pulitzer Prize, but Lewis declined the award. In a letter to the committee, he wrote:

"I wish to acknowledge your choice of my novel Arrowsmith for the Pulitzer Prize. That prize I must refuse, and my refusal would be meaningless unless I explained the reasons.

All prizes, like all titles, are dangerous. The seekers for prizes tend to labor not for inherent excellence but for alien rewards; they tend to write this, or timorously to avoid writing that, in order to tickle the prejudices of a haphazard committee. And the Pulitzer Prize for Novels is peculiarly objectionable because the terms of it have been constantly and grievously misrepresented.

Those terms are that the prize shall be given "for the American novel published during the year which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of American life, and the highest standard of American manners and manhood." This phrase, if it means anything whatsoever, would appear to mean that the appraisal of the novels shall be made not according to their actual literary merit but in obedience to whatever code of Good Form may chance to be popular at the moment."