Cool-looking authors No. 16

Kurt Vonnegut, literary legend, author of "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle" and "Breakfast of Champions"

Vonnegut on the Shape of Stories:
Quick video lesson on YouTube

Now that's poetic

A list,
is that what
desire makes,
finally?

- An essay by poet Mark Doty linking Walt Whitman, Bram Stoker, meth, sex addiction and vampirism. In Granta's Horror issue, Autumn 2011.

Shh

It all happened
in silence,
yet within
the silence
voices were
endlessly busy.

- Tomas Transtromer, 2011 Nobel laureate,
from memoir

Local star

Creative Loafing's Best of ATL pick for Best Local Poet 2011:



Kevin Young, author of the books "Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels," "Dear Darkness: Poems," "For the Confederate Dead" and "Jelly Roll: A Blues." And curator of Literary Collections and Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

Solopoetics

Every invitation came
with a stern reminder:
“Please don’t bring a guest.”



— From New York Times article about the Wilde Boys poetry readings/literary salon created by poet Alex Dimitrov (pictured)

Georgia's poet laureate 2000-2011

Profile of David Bottoms in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“I don’t write unless I have a notion of what I want to say.”

Critic

This reader's response to a prize-winning poem certainly goes for the poetic style too:

This poem smells like the sawdust
rising from a puddle of extinguished upchuck.

— Bonnie (reaction to "Likenesses")

Cool-looking authors No. 15

James Franco, author of the short story collection "Palo Alto"
(Photo by Inez van Lamsweerde, for VMan)

A question (partial) from the article "Why Critics Praise Bad Poetry"

Why would anyone
want to jump through
rhetorical hoops
to read a poem?

— Adam Plunkett (Bookforum.com, Sept. 15, 2011)

Look

Tengo's father turned
in his direction.
His expressionless eyes
made Tengo think
of two empty swallow's
nests hanging
from the eaves.

— Haruki Murakami
(translated by Jay Rubin, New Yorker fiction, 9-5-2011)