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Scribd launches a global literacy campaign; the Chinese government refuses to allow any of Liu Xiaobo's relatives to collect his Nobel Peace Prize; the Seattle school board may ban Huxley's Brave New World; the bad sex award short list; and other news.
Terrance Hayes, who on Wednesday took home the National Book Award in poetry for his latest collection, Lighthead (Penguin), read one of his poems at the Jazz Poetry Concert in Pittsburgh.
The winners of the National Book Award, including a punk rocker, a poet influenced by music and memory, and a dark horse indie press author, were announced last night at a ceremony in New York City. Terrance Hayes won in poetry for Lighthead (Penguin); Jaimy Gordon won in fiction for her horseracing novel, Lord of Misrule, published by independent publisher McPherson; and Patti Smith won in nonfiction for Just Kids (Ecco), a memoir of her life as a young songwriter in New York City and her friendship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
This year's judges were Rae Armantrout, Cornelius Eady, Linda Gregerson, Jeffrey McDaniel, Brenda Shaughnessy in poetry; Andrei Codrescu, Samuel R. Delany, Sabina Murray, Joanna Scott, Carolyn See in fiction; and Blake Bailey, Marjorie Garber, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Seth Lerer, Sallie Tisdale in nonfiction.
Each winner received ten thousand dollars, and the finalists in each category, including poet C. D. Wright, novelist Nicole Krauss, and nonfiction writer Megan K. Stack, each received one thousand dollars.
In the video below, Smith reads from her winning book and performs her classic song, "Because the Night."
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A poem by Tim Nolan, illustrated and animated by Emma Burghardt, and read by the author. "Old Astronauts" is one of about a dozen animated poems produced by Minneapolis-based Motionpoems.
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Notre Dame student Will Thwaites performs "Daisy's Lullaby," a song he wrote about the character Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic American novel The Great Gatsby.
