Where is Kwame Dawes? Did we muzzle Kenneth Goldsmith after his Madonna/Koons post? Why have Patricia Smith’s musings and shout outs slowed down? And who are all these newcomers prattling and jabbing away on Harriet?

We always intended that our bloggers would change every three months or so. It just took longer than we expected because of summer vacations, work load, etc. And who would want to tune out Kwame or Patricia or Kenneth or Jeffrey or Rachel? We’ve invited them to chime in whenever they feel like it, but have turned over Harriet, and the checks she writes, to five poets who (as you no doubt noticed) represent different points of view. We also asked them because just like our previous bloggers they know how to talk to an audience.

Stephen Burt is a critic and WNBA fan recently displaced from Minnesota to Harvard. Ange Mlinko has taught all over the place but these days writes poetry, criticism, and blogs (we discovered her via her own blog Bachelardette) in Brooklyn. Alicia Stallings, a classics scholar and poet, joins us from Greece where she knits and iambs. Christian Bok is a conceptual poet on the faculty at the University of Calgary. (We first heard one of his amazing sound poems at last year’s MLA in Philly.) Rigioberto Gonzales is a poet, critic and teacher who writes a bi-monthly Latino book column for the El Paso Times of Texas, and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle. You can read more about them here.

Welcome to all! And thank you Patricia, Kwame, Kenneth, Rachel and Jeffrey for all your splendid posts!