From The Wall Street Journal:

WSJ: {I]s there some­thing com­pelling about the col­lab­o­ra­tive process com­pared to the soli­tary job of writing?

CM: Yes, it would compel you to avoid it at all costs.

Charles Simic, who pub­lished his first poems in the Winter 1959 issue of Chicago Review, was named U.S. poet lau­re­ate today. Read the announce­ment in the NYT or check out “Stone”, a poem the mag­a­zine pub­lished in 1967. (Photo by Alexan­dra Daley-​Clark.)

Update: Simic’s two poems from the Winter 1959 issue are now avail­able in PDF at Chicago Review. And here’s a squib from an inter­view I did with Chicago’s WBEZ about the issue.

Mar­i­lynne Robinson’s review of Annie Dillard’s The Maytrees gets the cover of this week’s Wash­ing­ton Post Book World. The Post also fea­tures a funny inter­view of Dil­lard by Daniel Asa Rose. For more reviews of the novel, click here.

Alan Shapiro was recently inter­viewed on WUNC’s The State of Things. Shapiro is the author of Tan­ta­lus in Love and The Last Happy Occa­sion and trans­lated The Oresteia.