LIT MAGS STILL EVANESCING

... er, I mean effervescing. The usual suspects line up to be counted in this trend piece for The New York Times profiling the present, surprising survival of literary magazines: McSweeney's, ZYZZYVA, CLMP. Wonder why your mag wasn't mentioned? Are you not thriving as well? Tip of the hat to Jenna D. for pointing this piece out.

TROL ONLINE AGAIN

News from the Republic of Letters has put on a new digital costume, i.e. has a new website, which serves in large part as a vehicle for Republic of Letters books, the third of which is out this month.

The Editor's motto for the new form of the magazine: We are not here to teach writers but to put them to the proof." For, Botsford continues, "In 21st-century America it is quite likely that the average reader has no idea that metals get proven: writers by publication among their betters."

Of the first offerings, I recommend "My Friend Borges."Really, it all looks good.

"GOD LIQUORS LOOSE EACH ASHEN TONGUE"

Below, and at the Boston Review website, Gregory Pardlo reads his poem "Palling Around":

This video is part of BR's special package celebrating National Poetry Month. The rich jangle of noun phrases Pardlo is using here is rather like what Lucy Brock-Broido was writing in her dense poems of the eighties; for example, these lines from "I Wish You Love" [from AGNI 27, 1988, pg. 11]:

Like Josef's skull ascending from Brazilian soil
On a twine, she rises from her famous white bed,
Exhumed by morning. I am hunted into daylight
When I wake like that, god-hungry, startled.
Now that my father is gone, he has gone
Luminous. I wish him love.

JOYCE SYMPOSIUM

The Boston Joyce Forum is sponsoring a symposium at Boston College this Saturday, April 16th. Joyceans of international repute such as Joe Valente (Buffalo) and Marilyn Reizbaum (Bowdoin) will present a series of lectures on the theme of "Joyce and History."

For more information on the BJF, write to Joseph Nugent or Patrick Mullen. Take note: throughout the academic semester, Raidin the Wake -- the Boston College Finnegans Wake reading group, now in its seventh year -- meets weekly in the ILA building at Stone Avenue.

BU ALUM NAMED ASME FINALIST

William Giraldi, a 2004 graduate of the BU MFA program in fiction, has been named a 2011 National Magazine Awards Finalist for his essay "The Physics of Speed" in the Fall 2010 issue of The Antioch Review. From the essay:

In the following days I learned that absence takes up space, has mass, moves from room to room. Grief is much heavier than fear. Fear hung before me in anticipation, whereas the grief was planted like a sequoia in my stomach, its roots reaching far down into my legs for water, its branches reaching up through my arms and torso and neck, the poison from its fruit spilling into my cells. Each terrible dawn stretched across the day and illuminated my father's absence.

 If you'd like to read the whole piece, subscribe to The Antioch Review, or ask to borrow my copy -- I'm happy to mail it out.

LIBERTY READING

In the latest iteration of the Poetic Justice reading series, January O'Neil, Marsha Pomerantz, and Ron Slate will be reading this Thursday, April 14th, at 6:30. The reading will take place in the 5th floor Esplanade Room of the Liberty Hotel, 215 Charles Street. Organized by Tapestry of Voices and The Grolier Poetry Book Shop.

READING AT THE ARMORY

The First and Last Word Poetry Series presents Joshua Coben, Ron Slate, and Kim Triedman, reading on Tuesday April 12th, at 6:30 PM at The Center for the Arts, 191 Highland Avenue, Somerville Mass. Admission: $4; followed by an open mic.