Cool-looking authors No. 8

Karen Russell, author of novel "Swamplandia" and short-story collection "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves"
(Photo by Michael Lionstar)

Spiggitz

"I am a poet first and a cat second." Spiggitz indeed has the feline soul of a poet.

Twitter

Billy Collins even writes good Twitter-poetry. New York Times reports on the challenges of poetry in 140 characters or less.

River

He was steady,
she told me,
like a rock.

I was only a child
but I wanted
to say a man
is not a rock.

I myself would
have preferred
a man who was
like a river,
changing
and quick,
always
a surprise.

— Alice Hoffman, "The Red Garden"

Cool-looking authors No. 7

Tea Obreht, author of "The Tiger's Wife"
(Photo by Beowulf Sheehan)

Doe

She thought of deer
and how they slipped
through the woods,

invisible,

as if they were
ghosts themselves.

— Alice Hoffman, "The Red Garden"

Cool-looking authors No. 6

Mat Johnson, author of "Pym"
(Photo by Meera Bowman Johnson)

Emily

She liked to disappear,
even when she was
in the same room
as other people.

— Alice Hoffman, "The Red Garden"

Presenting

James Franco
is now
a poet,
don't you
know it.
Franco does it all.

Peabody

The Washington Post has a nice profile of the editor of Gargoyle, the magazine where my first poetry publication appeared. This is Richard Peabody