It would seem that we are in the midst of a second backlash (would that be a back-againlash?) regarding the reputation of the British poet Philip Larkin, whose reputation has swayed from pole to pole since his death in 1985.

As The Prague Post reported June 8, W.H. Auden is enjoying renewed interest as of late, especially since the publishing of a new edition of his long poem The Age of Anxiety.

Not everyone is a fan of Auden, including this writer. But you can’t argue with his fashion sense, as described by the New York School poet James Schuyler, who worked as Auden’s “secretary” in Italy in 1949.

Perhaps the best resource on the Internet for audio recordings of writers reading their work, PennSound has several recordings of the American poet William Bronk (1918-1999) who was born and died in the month of February. The recordings annul the judgement of Bronk as a pompously hermetic poet.

Derek Walcott has been awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry for his 2010 collection WHITE EGRETS. While judge chair Anne Stevenson has called Walcott’s book “risk-taking,” the judges certainly took no risks in naming Walcott the winner of this prestigious prize.

A recent visit to Shakespeare and Sons in Mala Strana yielded a used copy of Edward Said’s final book, On Late Style, which was published in 2006, three years after his death of leukemia.This idea of lateness has more recently been taken up in Last Looks, Last Books, by the preeminent American poetry critic Helen Vendler.

One of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke, was born in Prague December 4, 1875. Rilke grew up at Jindrisska 19, just off Wenceslas Square. To commemorate the anniversary of the poet’s birth, Colophon presents two early Prague poems written by Rilke, translated by Prague-based poet Anne Brechin.

In response to the lack of poetry books featured in Best Book lists from the majority of the mainstream press, here is a list of ten great collections of poetry which were published in 2010. The list will be added to throughout the week, so be sure to check back.

“No one reads poetry anymore” is perhaps the most often voiced complaint from contemporary poets, and despite the fact that what they really mean is “No one reads my poetry,” it is difficult to argue this point when one casts an eye on the barren landscape of poetry criticism in the mainstream media.