Stephen Burt

Believer: on Deborah Woodard

2014-01-05T03:11:24Z

I’m in The Believer several times each year as a Contributing Reviewer. This month (Jan/ ’14) I review a neat book of mostly-prose partly-narrative and certainly groundbreaking poems by Deborah Woodard.

My thanks to Brandon Shimoda for bringing her book to my attention some number of months ago!

Interview with Monica Youn at Boston Review

2014-01-05T03:02:35Z

I’ve been a fan of Monica Youn and of Monica Youn’s poetry since 1994; it’s a pleasure like none other to say that she asked some great questions, and I tried to answer them, in a recent online segment for Boston Review. The piece comes with “Three Stephanies,” that is, three new poems.

NYTBROMG

2014-01-05T02:55:26Z

The last New York Times Book Review of 2013 included a rather nice review of Belmont from Major Jackson, along with Jackson’s coverage of Kwame Dawes, Mei-Mei Bersenbrugge and Averill Curdy: “ This prodigiously gifted critic… complicates the suburbs we know… by suggesting the way out of malaise is to celebrate residents’ liberating desires and obsessions, not least his own.”

“Both the person I am and the people whom I would like to be”

2014-01-05T02:49:43Z

I think I have finally figured out the most important things I want to say about the intersection of the big topics “being trans” (or “being a girl inside”) and “writing poetry”: they’re here, in a long review for the Los Angeles Review of Books (thanks, LARB!) of the important anthology troubling the line. It appeared in late 2013. Let me know what you think. I’ve been delighted so far by the feedback on this one too.

See you in Seattle, and Bellingham, and Walla Walla!

2013-11-10T05:18:50Z

I’m rather excited about next week’s Pacific Northwest tour: Tuesday night Nov. 12 I read at the fabled Open Book in Seattle at 7:30pm.

On Wednesday Nov. 13 I’ll be at Western Washington University in Bellingham.

Thursday Nov. 14 I shall be the grateful guest of Whitman College in Walla Walla.

And on Friday Nov. 15 the tour wraps up with a critical talk, “The Nearly Baroque in Contemporary Poetry,” at 6pm at the University of Washington Seattle as a guest of its English Department in Humanities Center 35. Perhaps I’ll see a few of you there!

Boston Book Festival

2013-10-08T03:23:11Z

I’ll be reading at the Boston Book Festival, at 2:30pm Saturday October 19, at Cuffs Bar with David Rivard and Lucie Brock-Broido. Forget me: come see them! Lucie’s new book is something else: elaborate, scary, trustworthy, Baroque.

Twin Cities Book Festival

2013-10-07T01:45:16Z

Live near the Twin Cities? Plan to visit this weekend? I’ll see you there! I’ll be at the Twin Cities Book Festival along with, among others, Rae Armantrout, David Wojahn and Nicholson Baker. I’ll be on a panel asking and answering a question that sounds very much like “What Is a Classic?” along with Alison McGhee, Gary Dop, Kevin Smokler, and Macalester College’s Marlon James. Things start happening at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds at 10am and continue happening until 5pm; our panel’s at 10:30am.

This annual event is still my favorite book festival; it’s run by the good folks from Rain Taxi.

A revealing talk with John Ebersole

2013-09-10T03:52:20Z

John Ebersole does the New Books in Poetry podcast, which has recently interviewed Michael Robbins, Lisa Olstein, Dana Gioia and me. It’s an hour-plus of me talking and John asking what I hope turned out to be very good questions; you can listen in whole or in part.

“What advice do you have for young poets and critics?”

2013-09-10T03:46:50Z

At TED-Edinburgh around Laura Cococcia, and now it’s an interview she conducted with me about how to read poetry, and why. Thanks, Laura!

Rebecca Porte interviews me for Bookslut

2013-09-10T03:41:58Z

I first encountered Rebecca Porte a while ago at Mac. Now she’s half the Oona-verse and an Octophile and a considerable poet and critic at the University of Michigan and she’s interviewed me. I talk about Yeats and curry in Scotland and being trans and traffic lights and meerkats and some other stuff. I think it came out well.