Author Albert Camus (photography by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004 ) "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” –– Albert Camus , The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus may have died tragically when the car in which he was a passenger crashed on January 4, 1960, but the novels, plays, essays, articles and notebooks he left behind continue to help lend clarity to individual and collective conflicts within the world in 2013. November 7 marks the 100th anniversary of the author’s birth and even though his works are already taught in high schools and universities around the world, the occasion of his centennial has prompted numerous events that have been taking place throughout the year. On November 7 and 8, the Albert Camus Society will host a Centennial Conference from 9:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. on both days at the Swedenborg Society Building in London. Tickets to the event, which will

Cover of first edition of I MADE MY BOY OUT OF POETRY featuring original art by celebrated New Orleans and New York artist Gustave Blache III . Recently I found myself on the verge of crossing over from ambivalence into guilt due to the amount of time and creative energy devoted this year to online journalism and other forms of prose-writing as opposed to a more luxurious immersion into the rich flow of poem-making. There were actually at least two instances in 2012 when I managed to combine the genres: the first came in February when writing about the death of WhitneyHouston and the second came, ironically enough, in August when writing about the life of one Michael Joseph Jackson. Although the poems included with the stories can stand well enough on their own, the fact that they were generated by journalistic concerns instead of employed as an initial means to a necessary end in themselves made me feel somewhat negligent. After all, where journalism was concerned I had