Industrial Designers, Russian Poetry, and Britney Spears?!?

It must be Friday. First off is “Emptying Space to Let Something In: What can poetry teach designers?,” by Xanthe Matychak for CORE77, Industrial Design Supersite. The title pretty much…

It must be Friday.

First off is "Emptying Space to Let Something In: What can poetry teach designers?," by Xanthe Matychak for CORE77, Industrial Design Supersite. The title pretty much says it all. I enjoyed reading this piece, and it makes me ponder the following question: If designers can learn from poets, and specifically Margaret Atwood, shouldn't poets be able to learn from designers?

The answer is, "Of course."

***

"The 'raging bull' of Russian poetry," by Dalia Karpel for Haaretz.com is a very interesting profile of an early 20th century Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. To this day, there is speculation as to whether the poet's death in his 30's was a suicide or political assassination. This is a longer article, though well worth the read.

***

And since I only cover the most serious of breaking poetry news, I just had to share "Britney Spears attacks mother in a poem," by Jeannette Walls for MSNBC. According to the piece, Britney wrote a bitter poem to her mother, Lynne Spears, titled "Dear Mama."

It's not yet known if this poem will lead to a full-fledged collection of bitter poetry (maybe even with an accompanying CD set to music).

(p.s. That was a joke.)

(p.p.s. I think.)

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.