Go visit a museum and tell me what you see, who is represented? Who is represented disproportionately? Or, better yet, go to any museum of your choice via the internet and count how many artists of color are represented. Below is a poetic “review” by Sesshu Foster which he wrote after a visit to the U.C. L. A. Hammer Museum in Los Angeles with his mother.

review of “made in l.a.” at the ucla hammer museum

it’s okay that the artists are all white, even the nonwhite artists (2?) are kind of white

it’s okay that the curators are all white, it’s

okay that the l.a. reflected in this show is like the l.a. in robert altman’s “shortcuts” which is a strange all-white l.a. Read More >

Ping-Pong, the journal of art and literature published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library, is pleased to announce the winner of its second annual poetry contest, Mark Lamoureux. His poem, “Summerhenge, Winterhenge,” was chosen by judge, David Shapiro from among many entries. His poem will be featured in the upcoming issue of Ping-Pong set for release in October 2014. “Spaceship Bodhisattva” is Lamoureux’s poem from the 2011 issue of Ping-Pong. Read More >

Begins with a sunset on the Pont Marie next to our pied-à-terre in the Île Saint-Louis, one of two natural islands in Paris.

The next evening we invited some folks over for a small fête to kick of the week of events planned for the Henry Miller Memorial Library’s Aller Retour Paris literary festival. Naturally this involved much wine, bread and cheese. The calm before the storm:

Pont Marie Gang at Sunset (not featured, our photographer and pal: Debi Lorenc)

I wanted to only eat bread, cheese and butter the whole time in Paris, but after two days, I had to add some roughage. That’s all I’m saying. I made everyone go out to the bridge at sunset where we drank German sekt (sorry France) and ate petite madeleine from Combray and talked about Proust, yes, I am serious. Reading the new translation of Swann’s Way right now. Read More >

Part of the brilliance of Kim Addonizio’s poetry resides in its tuna can lid cut to the wrist of reality: there is truth here which does not kill, but makes one bleed a bit, only you don’t know you’re bleeding until you see the drops staining your white blouse.

When asked to submit the 10 most influential books on my writing, Addonizio’s poetry sat at the top.  She is not only an American treasure in the realm of poetry, she’s also a generous advocate to young poets. Her popular online poetry workshop is generative and intimate. She opens her home to legendary poetry salons in the tradition of the greatest writers throughout history, she is, in a word: wunderschön. Read More >

I translated the poems that make up Black Tulips: The Selected Poems of José María Hinojosa (University of New Orleans Press, 2012).This Ping-Pong folio*  is inspired by several of Hinojosa’s relatively early poems, poems largely made out of questions. The question is a central trope in general in the work of Hinojosa. His poetry is a kind that is speculative and imaginative, with a language that grows increasingly richer, symbolic, and dense. The act of wondering fills his work, wondering about the world, about love, and finally about the present and future of the country he loves. Though his politics could not be further from my own, being the first translator of Hinojosa into English, becoming his voice in this language for the first time, was a great pleasure and a great responsibility. There was a great injustice in erasing such a gifted, significant poet. “Lost, but now found,” writes Jonathan Cohen, translator and poet. I can only hope he stays found for a very long time- Mark Statman

*Each year Ping-Pong magazine has a folio where we invite responses to various poems in translation. This year we will feature Alexander Blok.

Write your own poetic response to the following questions posed in this poem (in Spanish and English) by José María Hinojosa.  Read More >

How would you describe a beautiful woman? The American media-complex puts forth its definition of female beauty, and shocker-alert, it is equated with money: Botox injections 600.00, boob jobs, 5-10,000.00, hair styling, well, I once watched a “behind the stars” type of show that said Victoria Beckham spent 50,000 on her hair per year. Sheesh. In the amount of characters it takes you to tweet (140), give us your definition of female beauty. Here Denise Duhamel explores this notion, taking scissors to prescriptions of beauty:

Fat Fashionista

O Gucci, Diesel, Calvin Klein, and your teeny garb.  Even you, frolicking Betsey Johnson. I saved two years to buy one of your dresses only to find that none of them fit. O Victoria Secret with your tiny panties that only stretch so far. O skinny jeans, halters, and bikinis. O Anne Klein, Versace, Guess, Ralph Lauren! I can only window shop unless I diet—and what would be the pleasure in that? O Marc Jacobs, Valentino, Dolce and Gabbana, Stella McCartney, let me tell you—there was a time when I had my own private designer, my grandmother Bertha Bourgeois and her aqua Singer.  Even when she worked from a Butterick pattern, she pinned the crepe paper to me first and made any adjustments. All my clothes were custom—I could be an apple, a pear, a turtle, any shape I wanted.  My designer didn’t care. I strutted the vinyl carpet runner that lead from her hallway to the living room wearing her latest creation.  Every season I picked my fabric and consulted with BB who took to it with chalk, her pinking sheers cutting along the bias.

Your job is to write a piece of flash fiction in 200 words or less based on one of the stanzas in Joe Hall’s poem from the 2013 edition of Ping-Pong here:

POTTING SHED

“The newlyweds will only see their wives

through the grillwork.” I kiss you

behind the ear in the mesh

Read More >

Welcome to the world of Lina ramona Vitkauskas’ poetic brain. Featured here is the winning poem for the inaugural poetry competition of Ping-Pong, journal of literature and arts published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library. The challenge here is to write an imitation of this beautiful piece. And thank-you Lina for playing along!

We Can Be Heroes
You are the rodent,

an open window.

A man is but a product of his thoughts.

Be regulated                but not homogenized.

You know the tightrope trick.

Everyone plays it like Slinky or derivatives.

Stretched out—but you cannot see

you. Read More >