America’s new poet laureate is not exactly what you might expect of a writer in such a prominent position. “At age 77, living what has been a well-filled but private literary life, Donald Hall is a bit shocked at the intense national media attention to his appointment.” Hall has been publishing poems for over forty years, and in the often-snarky world of American literature, he stands out as a writer about whom no one seems to have a negative word to say.
Tag: 06.17.06
Grave Robber Uncovers Archaeological Stunner
“Hoping for leniency in a coming trial, an accused tomb robber led Italian officials two weeks ago to a startling discovery on a sun-scorched hilltop here: the oldest Etruscan burial chamber ever found. The tomb, dating from at least the seventh century B.C., was shown on Friday to reporters who were taken by bus to the site, less than 13 miles north of Rome. For now, archaeologists have named it the Tomb of the Roaring Lions.”
The Met’s Glass House
“For eight years, curators, conservators, lighting experts and stonemasons have been methodically making small but significant improvements to the five medieval cloisters that were fashioned into [a Metropolitan Museum of Art branch operation] in 1938… The most noticeable addition by far, however, is just beginning to become visible. A wall of windows in the Early Gothic Hall that face west overlooking the Hudson has been carefully restored and given an exterior protective glazing in preparation for the addition of 14 panels of mainly 13th-and 14th-century stained-glass windows.”
Ellen Seligman On Editing Fiction:
Seligman is Canada’s “top fiction editor”: “You read a book, and maybe one can say what maybe needs work or what could use revision here and there. So, a reader might be able to do that. But if you’re really going to be useful, I think an editor has to understand what is possible to do. So you learn to develop the idea that ‘Okay, this is this book’ and you learn to make a distinction between what changes would make it another book as opposed to what can be done with the rough parameters of what the author wants to do with this book.”