Yes, I struck incredible Floridas
That mingled flowers with the eyes of panthers
In skins of men! And rainbows bridled green
Herds beneath the horizon of seas.

-AR

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If the voice of Charles Baudelaire isn't the voice of modern poetry it is probably the voice of Arthur Rimbaud. I prefer Rimbaud and admit that his prose poetry is not something I return to on a regular basis. I almost view him in a light similar to Whitman in that his writing forms some shadowy foundation upon which everyone else works. The unique qualities inherent in the works of these two are inaccessible and shouldn't be imitated. There is the spirit of Rimbaud in Lidija Dimkovska's Do Not Awaken Them with Hammers that I really like. Nothing in it resembles imitation though and that's what's so interesting about it.

All the energy being expended over Salmon Rushdie's new award seems ridiculous to me. I've never read the Satanic Verses and probably never will. Someone should tell the crazed protesters that all literary awards contests are rigged anyway. Mr. Rushdie, just when you thought it was safe. Wait, weren't you just on Conan O'Brien the other night? You were knighted? WTH

Silliman does a good job contextualizing The City Visible but I don't get Chicago's reputation as the Rodney Dangerfield of cities. I guess there are poets who move to New York to feed off its literary history to give themselves some of sort of credibility because of their new mailing address. I thought the Internet had done away with all that. I couldn't care less if a writer is from New York or Akron --if I think the work is important.

Ok. Now this has me really wondering. Yikes.