Last month, James Franco was at the 92nd Street Y discussing his portrayal of Allen Ginsberg in the movie Howl, and how he developed his voice for the part. Now the 92Y has an mp3 of Ginsberg himself reading “Mind Breaths” during a 1977 appearance there. They say the poem was inspired by his study of samatha meditation, which Ginsberg has said "is paying attention to the breath leaving the nostril and dissolving into the space in front of the face. There is constant daydreaming and drifting away from that attention to the space." more ›

Is everyone excited for Poem in Your Pocket Day today? Mayor Bloomberg is! Though he already implored his Twitter followers to write 140-character poems for a chance to be published in Metro New York, Bloomberg decided to show off a little with a poem inspired by the first line of Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the Thing with Feathers." You can barely tell whose is whose! more ›

Who knew Bloomberg was so deep? To celebrate "Poem in Your Pocket" day on April 29th, Bloomberg is hosting a Twitter poetry contest. To enter, just write out a 140 character poem and tag it @NYCMayorsOffice. Bloomberg will pick his favorites, which will be printed in Metro New York next Thursday. Bloomberg went first: "Don’t worry if your poem is a terrible mess/As long as it’s 140 characters or less!" How about, "Bloomberg tweets with grace and ease / Cause he doesn't care about the economies!" Here we come, Metro New York! more ›

Months after an anonymous pamphleteer tossed hundreds of copies of an anti-Obama poem from the top of a Downtown Brooklyn building, someone has reportedly thrown copies of the same obscene verse from the top of a building near the corner of 68th Street and Broadway. A Gothamist tipster writes: more ›

Before you lay down some hard earned cash on that Bob Dylan poem, you should probably know a little bit more about it. Like, for instance, that those are actually the words of Canadian country singer Hank Snow. Reuters reports that earlier this week Christie's announced the sale of a Bob Dylan poem believed to have been written in 1957 when he was away at Jewish camp, but they "failed to detect that the words, with a few minor variations, matched those of a song previously recorded by Snow." A reader alerted Reuters of the fact, who then informed the auction house, who announced, "Additional information has come to our attention about the handwritten poem submitted by Bob Dylan to his camp newspaper, written when he was 16, entitled 'Little Buddy.' The words are in fact a revised version of lyrics of a Hank Snow song. This still remains among the earliest known handwritten lyrics of Bob Dylan." The big question here is: did Dylan cop to copying the lyrics back in '57? It certainly wouldn't be the fist time he's lifted some lines. more ›

Awww, before Bob Dylan wrote the songs he became known for, he wrote a poem called "Little Buddy" about the tragic death of a dog. USA Today reports that when he was 16, Dylan (then Zimmerman) penned the poem for the newspaper at Herzl Camp in Webster, Wisconsin—and now it's expected to take in around $15K at Christie's on June 23rd. "Written on both sides of a single page, the poem tells the poignant story of Little Buddy, who is killed at the hands of a drunkard, and the boy who mourns him." Christie's pop culture expert says, "It's a very early example of his brilliance. It comes from the mind of a teenager (with) some very interesting thoughts kind of percolating in his brain." Dylan will turn 68 on Sunday, and he told his old camp they were free to do what they wished with the poem. Read it in full, in his own handwriting, after the jump. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg may be a lame duck mayor, but he's super busy. Earlier this week, he recommended to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the United State should open its markets. Yesterday, he met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and showed off his open-cubicle bullpen (and huge plasma TV). And today, besides hosting the 2008 New York City Luncheon at the Four Seasons, the Mayor had a peom published in today's Metro, in honor of Poem in Your Pocket Day. more ›