Katie Degentesh uses the blog form in a totally different way from most of us: a series, irregular in rhythm, of odd and hilarious urban vignettes.

I almost left out Poetry Hut Blog, by Jilly Dypka. Excellent source of news about poetry.

vowel movements by Julie Dill is a local favorite. Equanimity is my favorite blog of all time, and I love pseudopodium even when I have no idea what Ray Davis is talking about.

Joe Duemer has been blogging forever, since before Silliman's blog. Good political commentary and Wittgenstein. I even purchased and read a book of poems by Joe Duemer because of his blog. It had a fine sestina in it.

On to the cees. Sorry if I left you out if your name starts with an A or B. I'm not going to lie and say I read a blog I really don't. It doesn't mean anything except that you probably don't link back to me frequently.

Cahiers de Corey is the most substantive academically based blog aside from Lime Tree, who doesn't post as frequently. I've also been reading Corey for a long time. He will go far. Is this the first dissertation on American poetry whose progress we can follow on line?

The studious Laura Carter is a new addition to my regular rotation. I've been reading Shanna Compton for a long time. Her blog's just always been there for me. I don't even remember when I first started with it.

Whimsy Speaks by J. Bahr is also in my "B" section, even though he doesn't like Frost's "Silken Tent." Jeffrey is whimsical and intelligent, never boring. I haven't been reading his blog for very long, but it's earned a spot on my favorites.

And Tom Beckett whom I've mentioned recently but cannot leave out of the favorites list.

Bramhall, another recent edition to my favorites list, with a good post today on Language Poetry.

Jim Behrle heads my list of favorite blogs (going in more or less alphabetical order). The cartoons, the rants and open letters. The Ron cartoons are funny as hell.

THE GREAT AMERICAN PINUP: A 10 POEM ANTHOLOGY, EXPIRATION 03/01/05 Good list from David, much better than his list from 10 years ago. He even has the same Yeats poem I chose for my list. The Catullus poem is an odd choice. I would have chosen a much more conventional one like "Passer, deliciae meae puellae." So he gets points for originality on that one. I haven't read a poem by James Dickey in years, or even thought about James Dickey for that matter. He was super famous when I was growing up.

What's wrong with this?:

"I have had asthma for a
long time. It seems to improve
Here in this house by the river.
It is quiet too. No crowds
Bother me. I am brighter
And more rested. I am happy here. . . "

(Rexroth translating Tu Fu.) To me it is just WRONG. I don't know Chinese, but this is WRONG. The enjambments break up the rhythm of the thoughts, but don't give any sense of surprise or creative disjunction; just jerkiness. Are they supposed to be imitating the way an asthmatic talks? I don't think so because he uses other equally arbitrary line-breaks in other Tu Fu translations. Usually in classical Chinese poetry a line is also a unit of thought, so by breaking up the original lines for a jazzy effect you are destroying that basic phrasal rhythm. Maybe Rexroth has no ear (heresy!?). I've always assumed he did, because he enjoys a certain reputation, but maybe he actually doesn't.

Rexroth's diction produces an effect of bathos. "I have had asthma for a / long time."

Impersonation, a good post on the Dunham Kelley-Hawkins affair.

Although I AM dogmatic, I hate telling people what to do. Just ask my students. In fact that is my worst weakness as a teacher. Thus the title Poetry: An Instruction Manual is totally ironic. I can't even tell someone how to bake a loaf of bread because I assume that the person will want to do it in his or her own way. That Poundian tone of "let the student learn to scan Greek choriambics in his sleep" is totally foreign to me. I say this, because someone obviously unfamiliar with my style emailed me to protest against the very idea of an instructional manual or textbook of poetry. "Let the barbarians in for once" he told me. I googled the guy, because I was curious, and of course he had an MFA from Iowa! I guess they don't use textbooks there, because they are so anti-institutional. I have nothing against people with MFAs from Iowa. That would be an absurd prejudice. But obviously if you have such a degree you must accept the idea that poetry is something with a particular pedagogy. I simply believe my pedagogy has something to offer.

Back from my favorite bookstore, where I got a book by Bök and Rexroth's Chinese Translations and an anthology of 16th Century British Poetry, I heard the doorbell ring and the mailman brought me The Red Gaze and Joe, by Barbara Guest and Ron Padgett respectively. My whole wheat bread dough is rising in the oven. It's a good day. I decided a sabbatical is for READING.

My list of of 10 poems can beat up your list of 10 poems

1. "Standing and Watching" (Jimmy Schuyler)
2. "On Rachmaninoff's Birthday" ("Blue Windows, blue rooftops") If you don't know who wrote that I pity you.
3. "The Silken Tent" If you don't know who wrote that I pity you.
4. "Gravel" (Barbara Guest)
5. "The Devil's Trill Sonata" (David Shapiro)
6. "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter" If you don't know who wrote that I pity you.
7. "The Wild Swans at Coole" If you don't know who wrote that I pity you.
8. "Some Trees" (Ashbery)
9. "The Prophet" (Notley)
10. "The Art of Poetry" (Kenneth Koch)

That's just 20th century and poems written in English, mostly American, to simplify things. No epic poems, though a few longer pieces like the Shapiro and the Koch. It's a good place to start at least. I would really need to make a list of 100 poems and 100 books of poems.

Some longer works: Tender Buttons (I pity you, etc...) Silliman, Paradise. Mayer, A Midwinter's Day, Coolidge, Crystal Text., Williams, Spring and All Go to school with a poet. Never read the "Selected Poems" of anyone. You need the context of the weaker poems alongside the stronger ones. Never let an anthologist or selector do your work for you. Instead of sitting down a student with a Norton Anthology, wouldn't it be better to sit him or her down with the Collected Poems of Stevens, Cummings, Williams, H.D., Moore, Creeley, and let her or him make the anthology?

Vaudeville Without Organs is Tom Beckett's new blog. I love it when bloggers quit blogging, only to re-emerge 72 hours later re-invigorated. Like elsewhere, which returned to its full splendor immediately after Gary decided to put it on hiatus. In other news, the other Gary has a crush-list of worthwhile blogs. I'd love to do a series on my favorite blogs, but don't want to leave anyone out. I tend to favor blogs I have been reading for a long time and those of personal friends, like equanimity; those that simply mention my name frequently are also required reading. I have to check out what people are saying about me, after all.

The idea behind the book is that nothing like this exists. There are the classic "introductions to poetry" that reflect a basically New Critical perspective, that is, a perspective rooted in the 1940s. They aren't really geared toward the writing of poetry either. Robert Penn Warrren, John Frederick Nims, Lawrence Perrine. I'm assuming a writer under 40 who might want a hip but rigorous approach, sharp funny and irreverent.

I am entertaining bids from publishers so if you are a publisher and want to publish this book, I am all ears. We have a natural audience: textbook adoptions!