New York City Pays for Destroyed OWS Library, Mary Jo Bang on the Tetris Effect, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
4.10.13

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:

New York City agreed to pay Occupy Wall Street $230,000 for destroying its library in the Zuccotti Park raid of November 15, 2011. (Gawker)

Poet Mary Jo Bang explains the Tetris Effect, and why she writes. (Harriet)

On May 2, 2013, a Texas book club that has met each month for over a century will gather for the last time. (New York Daily News)

Author Joshua Henkin reveals the most vulnerable moments in a man’s life. (Oprah)

“In the end, even if Neruda died of cancer, as was said at the time, his exhumation is an opportunity to reinforce the message to authoritarians everywhere that a poet’s words will always outlast theirs, and the blind praise of their powerful friends.” In light of Margaret Thatcher's death in England just as Chilean investigators exhumed Pablo Neruda—Jon Lee Anderson shares his thoughts about this historical moment. (New Yorker)

GQ lists the twenty-one books every man should read, including Zadie Smith's White Teeth, and Alice Munro's Runaway.

From the department of things found online, eight collages of poet Bill Knott's rejection letters. (Vispoetica)