John Latta
@lattaj.bsky.social
Poet, birder. Used to bloviate at Isola di Rifiuti.
A lovely (and funny) anecdote out of Ronald Johnson’s 1976 Vort interview, conducted by Barry Alpert (reprinted in _Ronald Johnson: Life and Works_ (National Poetry Foundation, 2008)). I would love to read a collection of the letters exchanged between Ian Hamilton Finlay and Johnson.
November 26, 2025 at 1:53 PM
A lovely (and funny) anecdote out of Ronald Johnson’s 1976 Vort interview, conducted by Barry Alpert (reprinted in _Ronald Johnson: Life and Works_ (National Poetry Foundation, 2008)). I would love to read a collection of the letters exchanged between Ian Hamilton Finlay and Johnson.
Reposted by John Latta
✒️ 📔 Today's the day of our C.D. Wright cluster!
Ed. @aliciawright.bsky.social
ft. 11 contributors—the list is too long to fit into a single post! But you're in luck, bc the thread below tells the tale of this exceptional homage for an exceptionally talented poet!
post45.org/contemporaries
Ed. @aliciawright.bsky.social
ft. 11 contributors—the list is too long to fit into a single post! But you're in luck, bc the thread below tells the tale of this exceptional homage for an exceptionally talented poet!
post45.org/contemporaries
Contemporaries – Post45
Post45 seeks to reinvigorate the erstwhile convention of academic critics not only describing past traditions but also actively intervening in current tastes. It provides a forum for writers to conver...
post45.org
November 26, 2025 at 1:36 PM
✒️ 📔 Today's the day of our C.D. Wright cluster!
Ed. @aliciawright.bsky.social
ft. 11 contributors—the list is too long to fit into a single post! But you're in luck, bc the thread below tells the tale of this exceptional homage for an exceptionally talented poet!
post45.org/contemporaries
Ed. @aliciawright.bsky.social
ft. 11 contributors—the list is too long to fit into a single post! But you're in luck, bc the thread below tells the tale of this exceptional homage for an exceptionally talented poet!
post45.org/contemporaries
Nigh-random core sample out of Eliot Weinberger’s longish poem “The Ceaseless Murmuring of Innumerable Bees” (in the Spring 2024 issue of the Paris Review). A lengthy interview with Weinberger, conducted by Srikanth Reddy (in “The Art of the Essay” series), is found in the Fall 2025 issue.
November 25, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Nigh-random core sample out of Eliot Weinberger’s longish poem “The Ceaseless Murmuring of Innumerable Bees” (in the Spring 2024 issue of the Paris Review). A lengthy interview with Weinberger, conducted by Srikanth Reddy (in “The Art of the Essay” series), is found in the Fall 2025 issue.
Another sharp percept of poetry’s high processual work (“words in a cranial theater”!) and slow-arriving “get”—out of Merrill Gilfillan’s _Old River New River: A Miscellany_ (Red Dragonfly Press, 2019):
November 24, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Another sharp percept of poetry’s high processual work (“words in a cranial theater”!) and slow-arriving “get”—out of Merrill Gilfillan’s _Old River New River: A Miscellany_ (Red Dragonfly Press, 2019):
A Guy Davenport letter, printed under the title ”Correction . . .”, out of The National Review (October 26, 1973):
In my obituary of J. R. R. Tolkien [Sept. 28] the sentence “It was the rule of Tolkien's art that he invented nothing cynical” should have read 1/2
In my obituary of J. R. R. Tolkien [Sept. 28] the sentence “It was the rule of Tolkien's art that he invented nothing cynical” should have read 1/2
November 24, 2025 at 12:46 AM
A Guy Davenport letter, printed under the title ”Correction . . .”, out of The National Review (October 26, 1973):
In my obituary of J. R. R. Tolkien [Sept. 28] the sentence “It was the rule of Tolkien's art that he invented nothing cynical” should have read 1/2
In my obituary of J. R. R. Tolkien [Sept. 28] the sentence “It was the rule of Tolkien's art that he invented nothing cynical” should have read 1/2
Reposted by John Latta
Derek Mahon, born on this day in 1941
November 23, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Derek Mahon, born on this day in 1941
Reposted by John Latta
“I’m not a serious thinker. I’m a writer: that’s very different. I think a writer’s intelligence has to be alive, has to be incomplete. It has to carry contradiction. It has to be sort of haphazard and amateur.”
- Benjamín Labatut
- Benjamín Labatut
November 23, 2025 at 10:02 PM
“I’m not a serious thinker. I’m a writer: that’s very different. I think a writer’s intelligence has to be alive, has to be incomplete. It has to carry contradiction. It has to be sort of haphazard and amateur.”
- Benjamín Labatut
- Benjamín Labatut
Guy Davenport (b. 23 November 1927): “I can claim the effort, at least, of making prose ideograms in emulation of Pound’s poetic ones. An ideogram gathers components into a molecular structure that has charm rather than demonstrable sense.” (The claim, too, of Eliot Weinberger’s essayistic prose?)
November 23, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Guy Davenport (b. 23 November 1927): “I can claim the effort, at least, of making prose ideograms in emulation of Pound’s poetic ones. An ideogram gathers components into a molecular structure that has charm rather than demonstrable sense.” (The claim, too, of Eliot Weinberger’s essayistic prose?)
Reposted by John Latta
A rare glimpse into a poet's observations, via this November edition of @thearsonista.bsky.social:
Kerala Notes by American-born Kim Dorman @kimdorman.bsky.social, who lives in India and whose haunting Kerala Journal was published four years ago by @corbelstonepress.bsky.social.
Kerala Notes by American-born Kim Dorman @kimdorman.bsky.social, who lives in India and whose haunting Kerala Journal was published four years ago by @corbelstonepress.bsky.social.
Kerala Notes by Kim Dorman
Photos by Kim Dorman Through a grimy windowopen fieldssmall houses by trackspeople standingor sittingin doorwayswatching the train . . . 6.30 p.m. muezzin’s call to prayer . . . The battered, ruste…
burninghousepress.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:59 PM
A rare glimpse into a poet's observations, via this November edition of @thearsonista.bsky.social:
Kerala Notes by American-born Kim Dorman @kimdorman.bsky.social, who lives in India and whose haunting Kerala Journal was published four years ago by @corbelstonepress.bsky.social.
Kerala Notes by American-born Kim Dorman @kimdorman.bsky.social, who lives in India and whose haunting Kerala Journal was published four years ago by @corbelstonepress.bsky.social.
Lovely. I wonder if anybody reads St.-John Perse much anymore.
St.-John Perse,
from “Pictures for Crusoe”
(tr. Louise Varèse)
from “Pictures for Crusoe”
(tr. Louise Varèse)
November 21, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Lovely. I wonder if anybody reads St.-John Perse much anymore.
Begun lately to carry around a pocket-sized notebook—for jotting down the unanticipated interior verbal onslaught, or (more rarely) overheard vocal aperçu (or sludge). The activity’s somehow got me looking again at Merrill Gilfillan’s short collection of notes “Alfresco.” 1/2
November 21, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Begun lately to carry around a pocket-sized notebook—for jotting down the unanticipated interior verbal onslaught, or (more rarely) overheard vocal aperçu (or sludge). The activity’s somehow got me looking again at Merrill Gilfillan’s short collection of notes “Alfresco.” 1/2
Reposted by John Latta
for @rloden.bsky.social
Re: Stuart Peterfreund. I see now the book I should be looking for is The Hanged Knife (Ithaca House, 1970), not Harder Than Rain (1977). The latter is, sadly, rather humdrum to poor, exhibiting vestigial period-style tics—awkwardly “surreal” similes 1/3
Re: Stuart Peterfreund. I see now the book I should be looking for is The Hanged Knife (Ithaca House, 1970), not Harder Than Rain (1977). The latter is, sadly, rather humdrum to poor, exhibiting vestigial period-style tics—awkwardly “surreal” similes 1/3
November 19, 2025 at 1:44 PM
for @rloden.bsky.social
Re: Stuart Peterfreund. I see now the book I should be looking for is The Hanged Knife (Ithaca House, 1970), not Harder Than Rain (1977). The latter is, sadly, rather humdrum to poor, exhibiting vestigial period-style tics—awkwardly “surreal” similes 1/3
Re: Stuart Peterfreund. I see now the book I should be looking for is The Hanged Knife (Ithaca House, 1970), not Harder Than Rain (1977). The latter is, sadly, rather humdrum to poor, exhibiting vestigial period-style tics—awkwardly “surreal” similes 1/3
Reposted by John Latta
Manuel Àlvarez Bravo / Untitled (Hair on Tile Floor), 1940s
November 15, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Manuel Àlvarez Bravo / Untitled (Hair on Tile Floor), 1940s
New York again, as it slips off into its distant manic slough and revery there to the east. Or, rather, Brooklyn. Two things—contextual fillers in a show somewhat crowded with such—out of the “Monet and Venice” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.
November 15, 2025 at 12:21 PM
New York again, as it slips off into its distant manic slough and revery there to the east. Or, rather, Brooklyn. Two things—contextual fillers in a show somewhat crowded with such—out of the “Monet and Venice” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.
Quick nod and amen for Roland Barthes (b. 12 November 1915), all style, no system: “the fragment breaks up what I would call the smooth finish, the composition, discourse constructed to give a final meaning to what one says, which is the general rule of all past rhetoric . . . the fragment is (1/2)
November 12, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Quick nod and amen for Roland Barthes (b. 12 November 1915), all style, no system: “the fragment breaks up what I would call the smooth finish, the composition, discourse constructed to give a final meaning to what one says, which is the general rule of all past rhetoric . . . the fragment is (1/2)
Saw Ira Sachs’s new movie _Peter Hujar’s Day_, based on the recently-found transcript of a lost tape recording made by Linda Rosenkrantz (author of _Talk_ (NYRB, 2015)). Two things: Hujar’s amusing and gently-dismissive report of photographing an Om-insistent and somewhat pedantic Allen Ginsberg.
November 11, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Saw Ira Sachs’s new movie _Peter Hujar’s Day_, based on the recently-found transcript of a lost tape recording made by Linda Rosenkrantz (author of _Talk_ (NYRB, 2015)). Two things: Hujar’s amusing and gently-dismissive report of photographing an Om-insistent and somewhat pedantic Allen Ginsberg.
Reposted by John Latta
Graciela Iturbide / Sin título, Japón, 2014
November 10, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Graciela Iturbide / Sin título, Japón, 2014
Reposted by John Latta
Graciela Iturbide / Antes de la matanza
(Before the slaughter), La Mixteca, Oaxaca, 1992
(Before the slaughter), La Mixteca, Oaxaca, 1992
November 10, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Graciela Iturbide / Antes de la matanza
(Before the slaughter), La Mixteca, Oaxaca, 1992
(Before the slaughter), La Mixteca, Oaxaca, 1992
“Stuck in Flushing.” (Annals of things I never thought I’d have the opportunity to say.)
November 9, 2025 at 11:48 PM
“Stuck in Flushing.” (Annals of things I never thought I’d have the opportunity to say.)
Reposted by John Latta
Graciela Iturbide / Benarés, India, 1999
November 9, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Graciela Iturbide / Benarés, India, 1999
Two photographs by Graciela Iturbide, out of a tremendous exhibit at the International Center of Photography, in New York City. “El señor de los pájaros, Nayarit, México,” 1985 and “Ritual, Benarés, India,” 1998.
November 8, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Two photographs by Graciela Iturbide, out of a tremendous exhibit at the International Center of Photography, in New York City. “El señor de los pájaros, Nayarit, México,” 1985 and “Ritual, Benarés, India,” 1998.
Wow. Series, miniatures, the unfinished. No better genre.
Josef Albers / Mountain Journey, Tamzunchale, Jacala, Mexico, n.d.
November 8, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Wow. Series, miniatures, the unfinished. No better genre.
I recall seeing The Alternative Press’s Ken Mikolowski c. 1974 reading in Ann Arbor out of a tiny book printed by the legendary Walter Hamady’s Perishable Press. And joking about how the poems in the book, Thank You Call Again (1973), hardly deserved the impeccable fine letterpress presentation.
I am SO happy to be able to share the wonderful cover for DISPATCHES FROM THE AVANT-GARAGE: THE ALTERNATIVE PRESS coming in March from Wayne State UP. The cover has it all—postcards, letterpress, a bison. Beautifully designed, as it happens, by Lindsey Cleworth, who grew up in my/our hometown.
November 6, 2025 at 2:25 PM
I recall seeing The Alternative Press’s Ken Mikolowski c. 1974 reading in Ann Arbor out of a tiny book printed by the legendary Walter Hamady’s Perishable Press. And joking about how the poems in the book, Thank You Call Again (1973), hardly deserved the impeccable fine letterpress presentation.
Reposted by John Latta
Like Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow-Book, "Abū Zayd’s Rain-Book reads like it could have been written yesterday, its author less a scholar than an accidental poet, which is to say a kind of lightning rod."
Eric Bies reviews David Larsen's translation of THE BOOK OF RAIN.
ocreviewofbooks.org/2025/10/30/a...
Eric Bies reviews David Larsen's translation of THE BOOK OF RAIN.
ocreviewofbooks.org/2025/10/30/a...
The Book of Rain
The Book of Rain By Abū Zayd Al-Anṣāri Translated by David Larsen Wave Books. 2025. Reviewed by Eric Bies David Larsen is an expert translator of premodern Arabic texts. In 2017 Wave Books publishe…
ocreviewofbooks.org
October 30, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Like Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow-Book, "Abū Zayd’s Rain-Book reads like it could have been written yesterday, its author less a scholar than an accidental poet, which is to say a kind of lightning rod."
Eric Bies reviews David Larsen's translation of THE BOOK OF RAIN.
ocreviewofbooks.org/2025/10/30/a...
Eric Bies reviews David Larsen's translation of THE BOOK OF RAIN.
ocreviewofbooks.org/2025/10/30/a...