In Our Feeds: Slam poetry, pen names, and a round-up of best sentences

Lia Zneimer  //  Apr 4, 2014

In Our Feeds: Slam poetry, pen names, and a round-up of best sentences

Every Friday we share a handful of links we found interesting, provocative, funny—or just plain cool. We call it In Our Feeds. Have a good weekend!

Happy Friday! It's hard to believe it's already April. The good news? April is National Poetry Monthsomething we're more than happy to celebrate here at Scholastic. (My new favorite: a Billy Collins poem called "Grand Central" that I spotted on the subway as part of the MTA's Poetry in Motion initative.) Meanwhile, Megan found a great article about three new poets you should be reading. Have you read any of their work? (She also let us know that Samuel L. Jackson performed a slam poem about Boy Meets World. Awesome, right?)

There's been lots of talk lately about the best sentences in literature, not only on OOM, but also on Publishers Weekly and NPR. This week, Mike sent over another list of best sentences, this time from The American Scholar. What are your favorite sentences? (The problem is that there are too many beautiful ones from which to choose!) Perhaps the best sentences can be found in the books listed in the "How Well-Read Are You?" BuzzFeed quiz that Brittany sent over.

You know what we love almost as much as quizzes? Name generators. Nadia found one that helps you calculate your Victorian pen name. (Let it be known that I'm really the one behind the name Lionel Shelburn!)

Two other must-reads this week: this marvelous New York Times piece by Motoko Rich that looks at closing the knowledge gap long before school even starts (h/t Megan), and this hysterical piece by John Merrow called "Whom Has Died" (h/t Anne). (An exceprt: "The Times has learned that Whom has passed away after a long, lingering illness. Few details have emerged, although speculation is that the cause of death was indifference. Whom, of Latin origin, leaves no immediate survivors. A sole sibling, Whomever, passed away many years earlier. One distant cousin, Who, survives, but the bitter rivals rarely appeared together.")

What links were in your feed this week? Share 'em in the comments below, and have a great weekend!