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Rising Tennessee rapper Big Scarr, who was signed to Gucci Mane’s label 1017 Records, has died at age 22 of undisclosed causes. The wordsmith’s passing was confirmed by Mane in a Thursday Instagram post. “This hurt — I’m a miss you @bigscarr,” the “Poppin” singer wrote in the tribute, along with a photo gallery of the late lyricist. As of yet, Big Scarr’s cause and time of death have yet to be revealed, HipHopDx reported. Born Alexander Woods in Memphis, Tennessee on April 7, 2000, Scarr takes his name from injuries he suffered during a car crash at age 16....

by Chris Georg The Yugoslav-born poet Charles Simic has been announced by the Library of Congress to be the new United States’ poet laureate. This way the present co-Poetry Editor of “The Paris Review” will become the 15th Poet Laureate of the United States. He will replace Donald Hall in the Poet Laureate program that promotes poetry across the nation. Charles Simic was born in 1938 in Belgrade and he emigrated along with his family in the United States in 1953. He learned English and he later graduated from the same high school that Ernest Hemingway had attended, Oak Park...

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Great Plains poet Ted Kooser of Nebraska will be the next poet laureate of the United States. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington planned to officially announce the appointment Thursday. "Ted Kooser is a major poetic voice for rural and small town America and the first poet laureate chosen from the Great Plains," Billington said. "His verse reaches beyond his native region to touch on universal themes in accessible ways." Kooser, 65, replaces Pulitzer Prize winner Louise Gluck in the one-year position. The poet laureate's job carries with it few specific duties, to allow the writer...

Last Updated: Friday, 9 April, 2004, 17:02 GMT 18:02 UK Rapper wants to be poet laureate Joseph Simmons (right) with brother Russell, who created Def Poetry Jam Hip-hop pioneer Joseph "Run" Simmons, of the rap group Run-DMC, has applied to become poet laureate of the New York borough of Queens, where he was born. Simmons helped define the rap sound - which some regard as a form of poetry - with Run-DMC in the 1980s. "The whole life of Run-DMC was concocted in the atmosphere of Hollis, Queens," the rapper said - although he moved to New Jersey last year....

LOUISIANA I love Louisiana with its cotton fields and trees And the Spanish moss that flutters with the slightest bit of breeze. I love the fields of sugar cane, the grazing cattle herds, The sweet scented magnolias filled with brightly colored birds. I love the lazy bayous that meander through the state, Where bass and bream and speckled perch and crawfish lie in wait. I love the mighty rivers that flowed where we now tread, Atchafalaya, Mississippi and the clay filled Red. I love the forests filled with game, I'm proud that from our soil Come shrimp and oysters from...

(An Urgent Communique from AMIRI BARAKA) The date the time of the Newark Rebellion, Detroit had gone up a few minutes before, Watts two years before that. These were the most explosive, deadly and expensive outbursts of the Afro-American People for Self Determination and Democracy! THEY WERE NOT "RIOTS," THEY WERE REBELLIONS! (Just a few dance steps from REVOLUTION!) What Black People have gained since those times of outright Racist Repression (e.g., the Mob directed corruption of the vicious Addonizio regime here in Newark) We thought had ended not only with the Rebellion as the downbeat of real change, but...

Second Thoughts By William W. Lawrence Pennsylvania lawmakers won one and lost one in recent days. They appear to be doing a neat end-run around federal blackmailers who are demanding that Pennsylvania lower its blood alcohol limit from 0.10 to .08 percent. Pennsylvania legislators must pass a law lowering the limit by Oct. 1, 2003 to avoid losing $11.9 million in federal highway funds withheld in 2004. So they will. What it apparently calls for is simply a wake-up call with just minor penalties for those nailed driving with a blood alcohol content of between .08 percent and 0.10.But the...

Assembly set to act on bill to eliminate poet laureate By KATHY HENNESSYAssociated Press Writer June 22, 2003, TRENTON, N.J. -- Nearly a year since outrage over an alleged anti-Semitic poem prompted calls to remove poet laureate Amiri Baraka, the Assembly this week will consider a bill to abolish the position. Under state law, Baraka, who was appointed by the governor, cannot be fired. Since he has refused to step down, lawmakers want to eliminate the poet post. The Senate has already approved a bill to dissolve the position but both houses must agree on the legislation. A spokesman for...

Imamu Amiri Baraka vows to "go to the Supreme Court" if the New Jersey Legislature and Governor James McGreevey carry out their threat to revoke his appointment as the Garden State's poet laureate or block the $10,000 stipend that goes with the title. It isn't the money, he says. "Right now the most important thing to me is to disprove this lie that I'm anti-Semitic." Now why would anyone think a cold thing like that about Amiri Baraka? And yet a lot of people do think it, especially since his recent appearance at the Dodge Poetry Festival, where he read...

Author and UCSD professor Quincy Troupe has resigned as the state's first official poet laureate after admitting that he lied on his résumé about having a college degree. "I deeply regret my ill-advised decision to include inaccurate information on my curriculum vitae," Troupe said in a statement released by Gov. Gray Davis' office last night. "While I attended Grambling College, I never earned a college degree." Quincy Troupe Troupe, 62, has been a professor of creative writing and Caribbean literature at UCSD since 1991. He could not be reached for comment last night. The discrepancy was discovered during a routine...

<p>SACRAMENTO, Calif.(AP) - La Jolla poet Quincy Troupe resigned his post as California's first official poet laureate Friday after four months, announcing he had falsified information on his resume for the post.</p> <p>Troupe, appointed June 11 by Gov. Gray Davis, stated in his resignation letter: "I deeply regret my ill-advised decision to include inaccurate information on my curriculum vitae. While I attended Grumbling College, I never earned a college degree."</p>

Somebody Blew Up Bali They say its some chosen person, some hebraic Jew, in New York It wasn't our Islamic terrorists It wasn't the Hamas or the Hezbollah Or the them that blows up kikes Synagogs, or shoots us at the Wailing Wall It wasn't Saddam Hussein Or Mullah Omar or Osama Or Saleh, Farrakhan retiring It wasn't The gefiltefish in costume The towel head diseases That have murdered Australian people Terrorized reason and sanity Most of humanity, as they pleases They say (who say?) Who do the saying Who is them praying Who tell the lies Who in disguise...

LeRoi Jones, aka Amiri Baraka, has been asked to resign as poet laureate of New Jersey. He refuses. Hmm. The governor wants him gone because of what have been interpreted as anti-Semitic statements in his poem - if one wants to call it that - "Somebody Blew Up America," written after Sept. 11, 2001. The governor has it all wrong. Jones should not be asked to resign. Those who appointed him should resign - if they have read his work over the last 35 years. It is an incoherent mix of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, black nationalism, anarchy and ad hominem...

EARTH CALLING AMIRI BARAKA I just had a brief telephone conversation with New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka. Baraka made a fool of himself in public last week when he recited a poem titled "Somebody Blew Up America," in which he said "Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away?" Baraka has refused New Jersey Governor James McGreevey's demand that Baraka resign as poet laureate and the governor does not have the legal means to force the resignation. So...