Inclined to Speak Editor and Contributors at The Twig

Hayan Charara will be at The Twig Bookshop, 5005 Broadway, in San Antonio on Friday, May 23, at 6:00 p.m. He'll be joined by fellow contributors Naomi Shihab Nye, Assef Al-Jundi, and Marian Haddad.

For more information on this event

Adventures in the Wild reviewed in Booklist

"What do most people know about scientific research? They would probably describe a white-coated scientist with beakers in a laboratory. Although this stereotype does hold true for some types of biological research, ask the Arkansas State University's faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences, and they will tell you of a much different scenario. Photographing reptiles and amphibians in the field, swimming with the tiny Pecos gambusia fish, collecting flies in poultry houses, and meeting Sir David Attenborough as he filmed salamanders near Hot Springs take the reader along on the scientific quest. These forays into what makes field research fun, as well as what makes researchers tick, will be sought out by fans of popular science writing."
April 15, 2008

"Homeplace," by Jo McDougall on The Writer's Almanac

"Homeplace," by Jo McDougall, from Towns Facing Railroads, was featured today on The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. To listen, click here.

Inclined to Speak Reviewed in Library Journal

"In this important anthology, editor Charara, the author of two books of poetry (e.g., The Alchemist's Diary), draws a diverse map of Arab American poets. This carnival of voices ranges from expressions of political and social grievance, as in Charara's own "Usage" -- "I was born here / I didn't have to adopt America / but I adapted to it" -- to highly experimental efforts in language and imagery, as in Kazim Ali's "Gallery" -- "Music is a scar unraveling itself in strings / an army of hungry notes shiver down the four strings' furrow." Here we have two views of poetry, the former seeing its language as informational and a means to something outside the poem and the latter seeing it as suggestive and a means to itself. Yet the dilemma of "I" and "the other," "here" and "there" is examined in most of the poems. It is worth noting that all the poems in the collection are written in English, which makes the term Arab American a categorical indicator rather than a literary one. Readers of this collection will experience the joy of discovery and awareness; recommended for all public and academic libraries."

Fire Baton reviewed by Blackbird

Throughout Fire Baton the poet’s voice is spiky, assured, and utterly contemporary, but also tuned to the past for both locution and literary antecedent. In other poems, Hadaway invites in Laforgue, Shelley, Eliot, Derrida, and Pinsky; her erudition is fierce, sometimes amused at itself, always fitful and knotty. These poems bear up well under, and demand, repeated reading.

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Guide to Missouri Confederate Units Reviewed

The Civil War Books and Authors blog ran a lengthy review of Guide to Missouri Confederate Units, calling the book:

"... deeply researched, skillfully compiled, deftly organized, and remarkably complete. It is truly an authoritative reference book ... the abundant detail should more than satisfy a broad range of interested readerships, from hobbyists and casual researchers to historians, genealogists, and wargamers."

Read the review

More on the book

Billy Collins in Perrine's Literature Structure, Sound, and Sense

Two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins's poems "Introduction to Poetry" and "My Number" are included in the 10th edition of Structure, Sound, and Sense with permission from the University of Arkansas Press. Both poems were originally published in The Apple that Astonished Paris, Collins's first book of poetry, which was published by the University of Arkansas Press in 1988. "Introduction to Poetry" is the Collins poem requested from us most often... enjoy!

For more on Apple

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Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water-ski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.