"Charles Simic sets scenes, probes inner realm in new collection 'Sixty Poems,'" by Barbara Berman from the San Francisco Chronicle, reviews the U.S. National Poet Laureate's latest collection of poetry from Harvest Books.

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"Must we admire a poet to honor his work?," by Al Martinez from the Los Angeles Times, covers a dispute over the fate of Charles Bukowski's former East Hollywood home where he wrote much of his work.

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Check out other Poetry News.

A piece I wrote on Haiku is in the current issue of Writer's Digest at your local magazine rack. My piece, "The Soul of Brevity," is on pages 83 and 84 and includes how-to instruction, haiku history, exercises, resources, and more (all packed into 2 pages--seriously).

Of course, I wouldn't even think to plug myself, but my pals on Facebook have been giving me a hard time about not mentioning it on the blog. So there. Hope everyone's satisfied. It was definitely a great experience.

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Also, since I mentioned Facebook, feel free to befriend me on that social networking site. You can search for me as "Robert Lee Brewer." I'll be the one who looks like that dude up in the top left-hand corner of this page. But be warned: I'm likely to challenge you to a game of online Scrabble (not that there's much to fear in that, since I usually seem to lose).

Have a great weekend,

Robert

"'Everyday Poetry' Honors Dirty War Dead," by Bill Cormier from the Associated Press, discusses Poesia Diaria, edited by Virginia Giannoni, a collection of small notices published in Argentina newspapers called "recordatorios."

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Check out other Poetry News.

When I'm not reading poetry, I love reading those Taschen art biographies. First, artists paint (hehe) interesting lives. Second, the paintings included in the biographies often work as excellent poetry prompts.

I'm reading about Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico at the moment. De Chirico worked as a surrealist and thought his life was connected to that of Friedrich Nietzche. As he found his voice (or do painters find their vision?), de Chirico grew increasingly fascinated with enigma.

Quick quote: "To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere." -Giorgio de Chirico

There's a lot of truth in this quote by de Chirico. While rules are the foundation of good writing, great writing often bends or breaks the rules slightly. The "imperfection" makes the work memorable and beautiful. It's not always the case, but technically perfect can often be perfectly technical (and boring). So getting back to de Chirico, art must push beyond the logic and common sense of good writing to become great writing.

Anyway, here are two poetry-related de Chirico images:

"The Poet and His Muse"

"The Delights of the Poet"

To get back to one of the reasons I read these art biographies, use these two images to jumpstart your own poem. If you feel so inclined, feel free to share on here.

Happy holidays!

...by Robert.

First off, this is the only time I'm going to accommodate one of these "tags" to do a list (all future requests will be ignored--excepting if my mom were ever to actually get online, create her own blog and then tag me, though the chances of that are pretty thin). Second, I'm only doing this one because I was tagged by Nancy's mom from her Lillian's Cupboard blog, which is a nice blog (and yes, that's the tagging rules I've set up for this blog--only mothers of the Poetic Asides founding bloggers can tag me, and, even then, only once per lifetime).

The rules were: When tagged you must linke to the person who tagged you (which I've done above); Post the rules before your list (doing this moment); List 8 random things about yourself (preparing to do); At the end of the post you must tag and link to 8 other people (which I do not plan on doing); Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog, linking back to your meme (again, "not gonna do it").

Here are 8 random things about me:

(drumroll)

1. I have a scar in the middle of my left eye brow from when I was a wee baby and got in a car accident with my father and little brother David. Apparently, this was back when people regularly tore seatbelts out of their vehicles and did not safely secure baby seats. In addition, baby seats weren't put in the back seat automatically (as they are, nowadays). So the story goes that David's seat got flipped in the car accident and was hanging upside down crying his head off, though without any physical damage. Meanwhile, I smacked my head up against the dashboard and began bleeding all over my face but did not cry (probably more a result of some concussion than any "baby toughness").

2. Around the age of eight, I remember volunteering to let the neighborhood "big kid," who was probably like 12 and hanging out with all these kids between the ages of five and eight, powerdrive me into the ground more than 10 times in a row. For those who don't know, a person who is powerdriven is turned upside down and basically dropped onto his head. (Yes, again with the abuse to my head.) It's amazing I did not become some kind of broken neck statistic back in the day.

3. My favorite movie is It's a Wonderful Life. There's a scene near the end that always makes me tear up--even if I only see that scene completely out of context of the rest of the movie. Of course, there's more to me loving that movie than just one scene. It actually has quite a few okay moments throughout.

4. I'm allergic to peppermint. While I can suck on a candy cane without sneezing, biting into peppermint usually causes an "Aaaaaachoo!"

5. I have two sons, ages four and six. They are absolutely wonderful and amaze me constantly.

6. Our department is having a holiday party this afternoon, which is why I've totally gone crazy with the blog posts this morning, I'm sure. Who's ready for some yummy lunch and dessert--and a white elephant gift exchange? Of course, the answer is me.

7. Which reminds me, I would've totally won my 3rd grade elementary school spelling bee if I would've remembered the "w" in answer. I spelled it A-N-S-E-R, and as a result, I had the wrong answer (hahahahaha, that one never gets old--don't laugh).

8. And these 7 reasons all led to me becoming a poet. Basically, it's unavoidable when you have a lot of early head trauma, mild allergic reactions to candy, two children, an upcoming party, 2nd best spelling skills, and a penchant for sappy black and white movies.

Be warned: It could happen to you. Now, my stomach is rumbling, and I'm gonna head on over to party central. Have a great weekend!