Mar 5th, 2010 · When writer John D'Agata moved his mother to the suburbs of Las Vegas, he began looking at the history of the government’s plan to store nuclear waste deep in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The resulting boo—-- About a Mountai—-- is a reporter's notebook that reads like poetry.
Feb 28th, 2010 · "One thing poetry teaches us," Clifton once said, "is that everything is connected. There is so much history that we have not validated." Clifton, an African-American poet who tackled the difficult subjects of injustice, racism, and sexism in her work, died Feb. 13 at the age of 73.
Feb 18th, 2010 · An expert at blending musical genres, Citizen Cope (a.k.a. Clarence Greenwood) tells stories with music while incorporating hip-hop beats, quiet piano melodies, a hint of pop and more than a hint of blues. Hear Greenwood's brand of self-styled "urban poetry," live in concert from WXPN in Philadelphia.
Feb 11th, 2010 · Gil Scott Heron is a poet and singer/songwriter known for his politically charged work in the 1970s. Many consider him a forefather of modern rap for the way he merged inner-city poetry and jazzy soul music. He's been out of the spotlight in recent years, but has just released a surprising new record.
Dec 15th, 2009 · The most appropriate word I could use to define Loveless is dense. It's hard to crack, hard to get behind the wall of noise and find emotion or passion in the music. There's a stoicism about it that makes it difficult to connect with. Not being able to decipher the lyrics, I looked them up in hopes of finding something to grab onto, but I just wasn't impressed. I suppose I wanted more poetry and depth somewhere under all the fuzz.
Dec 15th, 2009 · What happens when two of the biggest driving forces in indie rock collaborate on album based on Jack Kerouac's beat poetry? The answer: 12 rapturous Americana songs recorded by Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service) and Jay Farrar (Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo), titled One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur.
Nov 19th, 2009 · The 60th annual National Book Awards were handed out Wednesday night in New York. Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, a novel about daring, luck and mortality in 1970s New York, won the fiction prize. T.J. Stiles' biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, The First Tycoon, was the nonfiction winner and Keith Waldrop's Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy won for poetry.
Oct 16th, 2009 · Though her singing voice was irreparably damaged in 1997, Julie Andrews' innate musicality is irrepressible. Her new book, a collection of poems, songs and lullabies, features an accompanying CD in which Andrews reads some of the verses that played an important role in her family.