Poetry & Poets in Rags

If he were still alive, Canadian poet Irving Layton, who died in 2006, would have turned 100 yesterday. We begin News at Eleven with links to two articles that reflect on his continued relevancy. On our Back Page, the eleventh story of News at Eleven, poet Tsering Woeser, who headlined last week for being under house arrest, is back in the news, calling for the end to protest by self-immolation. In between are links to quite a variety of articles on poets and poetry, including some poems. Speaking of which, you'll find poetry gems in the next section, Great Regulars. Poet John Burnside, who like Woeser also appeared last week, appears in both News at Eleven with a link to another interview of him, and in Great Regulars with a poem.

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:23 PM* 0 comments links to this post

a century after his birth, stems from his assertion that modern poetry had failed to respond to the crisis of man in the 20th century. He criticized, as he put it, "The sweatless paganism of Wallace Stevens . . . Eliot's weary Anglicanism. Yeats's fairytale Byzantium . . . Frost's jaunty pastoralism." None of these poets, according to Layton, had dealt with "man, tortured, humiliated and crucified." None had provided a portrait of man "that might have stiffened us for the cruelty, perversion, systematic lying and monstrous hypocrisy of the totalitarian regimes . . . or the no less damnable perversions and hypocrisies of the European bourgeois and imperialist."

from National Post: The Afterword: Irving Layton at 100
then The Globe and Mail: Why Irving Layton still matters

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:22 PM* 0 comments links to this post

of miles are often closer than two people sitting right next to each other on a bus--and [Albert] Goldbarth celebrates these surprising coincidences.

Of course, folding up these thousands of miles into an armspan often requires a meandering mental journey, Goldbarth's trademark digressive style. It's tempting to skip ahead in his longest and most dense poems, to cut right to the gorgeous synthesis at the end, a move at which he undeniably excels. Goldbarth himself pokes fun at his excessive verbosity, his tendency to get caught up so in the wordplay that the digression becomes a world in itself: "And I could spin this verbal fluff all day:/gavotte, guffaw, grisaille É so what?"

from Bookslut: Everyday People by Albert Goldbarth

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:22 PM* 0 comments links to this post

book makes the case that [William Carlos Williams] Williams' poem wasn't just for cold-hearted bastards. It was for everyone. Reading through the book, you can't help but feel that adult literature--and, indeed, our culture as a whole--has lost something through academic poetry's segregation. One William Carlos Williams poem inspired this entire delightful book. How much great art could we have, then, if poetry were allowed to stop gazing into its navel for obscure meaningfulness and were allowed, instead, to speak to its natural audience of malevolent plum-eaters and children of all ages?

from The Atlantic: Why Poetry Should Be More Playful

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:21 PM* 0 comments links to this post

are spontaneous, lyrical, physical and immediate. When his grandmother, a farmer, tells him she doesn't understand poems, he explains to her, "A poem is a song. It is in your heart and you can breathe it with your mouth."

This populist vision of poetry was also expressed by American Beat poets of the 1950s and early 1960s such as Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder.

from The Huffington Post: Korean Beat Attitudes: Rainhat Poet and Ko Un

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:21 PM* 0 comments links to this post

with such a fury?" the narrator asks as he begins the tale. "Oh . . . the gods, of course . . . . Um . . . pride, honor, jealousy . . . Aphrodite . . . some game or other, an apple, Helen being more beautiful than somebody--it doesn't matter. The point is, Helen's been stolen, and the Greeks have to get her back."

That's the overriding tone: chatty, informal, occasionally spiced by digressions that, echoing Homer's brilliant use of simile, seek humble parallels in contemporary life to the passions that inflamed the Greeks and Trojans.

from The New York Times: Troy . . . um, War . . . You Know
then The Independent: Verse that lasts in Troy or Tripoli

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:20 PM* 0 comments links to this post

to performance, Scotland is home to a crop of literary festivals and events, such as the annual garden readings in Callander; the monthly avant-garde brilliance of Michael Pedersen and Kevin Williamson's Neu! Reekie! at the Scottish Book Trust in Edinburgh; and the recent Margins festival in Glasgow.

But the most renowned of these--and still the most attractive in terms of its astonishing variety of events--is the StAnza festival in St Andrews.

from The Spectator: StAnza shows why Scottish poetry leads the way

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:20 PM* 0 comments links to this post

"Collected Poems" is, however, a revelation, almost certainly among the two or three most important books of poetry that will be published this year. His poetry is helped, not hurt, by this context and relative abundance. Around this book's margins a scruffy and blood-warm autobiography emerges.

Three great love affairs are chronicled pointillistically. (Mr. Gilbert has been married only once, to the sculptor Michiko Nogami, who died of cancer in 1982 at 36.) But so are infidelity and lust and howling varieties of pain.

from The New York Times: Appetites Of a Poetry Virtuoso In America

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:19 PM* 0 comments links to this post

the overly-religious moral façade that thousands of poor, hysterical souls have adopted in this our honduras, including some writers and intellectuals, Juan Ramón Molina's "Metempsychosis" can definitely show us that a bard from the 19Th century was ahead of our time.

Metempsychosis

from Honduras Weekly: Juan Ramón Molina: Ahead of Our Time
then Calibariel:" Juan Ramón Molina: "Metempsicosis" traducido al inglés

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:19 PM* 0 comments links to this post

surely, to be to enrich the culture. Few achieve it. Under Fiona Sampson's dedicated editorship, Poetry Review did just that.

from The Guardian: Letters: Poets' praise

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:18 PM* 0 comments links to this post

alongside this, that the ideal world is sort of there, if we can only meet it halfway. Poetry is, I think, an attempt to pre-empt the kind of speech that closes down the possibility of such a meeting, an attempt to keep oneself open linguistically and sensually and imaginatively to the world as it is, rather than using it as a movie screen for received ideas and second-rate wishes. Marx said the forest only echoes back what you shout into it--and this is very often true, perhaps more often than not, but I think the poet's task is to suggest that it needn't be.

from Granta: Interview: John Burnside

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:17 PM* 0 comments links to this post

what Tibetans have wanted to articulate," said the joint letter by Woeser and a senior Tibetan religious figure, Arjia Rinpoche, now living in exile in the United States, and Tibet's Amdo-based poet Gade Tsering.

"Yet, articulation of one's will cannot be an ultimate goal. The will has to be put into practice, transforming into reality," they said in the letter titled "Appeal to Tibetans To Cease Self-Immolation: Cherish Your Life in a Time of Oppression."

"Only by staying alive can the will become a reality. As long as self-immolation continues, every life would become another irredeemable loss."

from Radio Free Asia: Call for End to Burnings

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:01 PM* 0 comments links to this post

after his [Frank O'Hara's] 30th birthday and the death of his close friend Bunny Lang, that the "I do this, I do that" pieces started to appear. The surreal devices are toned down and a distinctive intimate voice emerges, delivering the close at hand. As he says in a poem to the painter Robert Rauschenberg: "Yes, it's necessary, I'll do/what you say, put everything/aside but what is here." By 1961, however, these had evolved into a series of charismatic, fragmented poems spinning on colloquial phrases and half-glimpsed details, scattering themselves in pieces across the page.

from Charles Bainbridge: The Guardian: Selected Poems by Frank O'Hara--review

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:01 PM* 0 comments links to this post

certainly put that when I was younger. I think of those as those magnetic opposites. I once gave a workshop and I asked the women poets there, If you went back to that little town you've come from--these were from small towns--would you say, I'm a poet? And one of them said, If I said I was a poet in that town, they'd think I didn't wash my windows. And that stayed with me for so long, the sense of the collective responsibility of someone as against the individual thing it takes to be a poet.

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Conversation: Eavan Boland

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:00 PM* 0 comments links to this post

for his previous collection, Stumbling in the Bloom, a collection exuberantly abuzz with "excesses, complexities, entanglements." Now the prolific West Coast poet is back with Crawlspace, his 16th collection, offering wordplay that's just as lively, but sounding a darker, less ebullient note.

from Barbara Carey: Toronto Star: Crawlspace by John Pass, Apologetic for Joy by Jessica Hiemstra-van der Horst: Reviews

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:00 PM* 0 comments links to this post

farm in central Wisconsin. He received his MFA in poetry from the University of Alaska-Anchorage. His first collection, Yellowrocket, was a Midwest Booksellers' Choice Awards Honor Book. He'll celebrate the launch of his second book, Pitch, this Wednesday at the Loft Literary Center at 7pm. Here's one of his poems from the new collection.

Apple Slices

from Marianne Combs: Minnesota Public Radio: State of the Arts: Minnesota Poetry: Todd Boss' 'Apple Slices'

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:59 PM* 0 comments links to this post

respond to his poems. "For me writing poetry is an activity of the soul," says Abbott. "It is the way the soul expresses itself in a world that is noisy, busy, and demanding. It is a place where I can express my deepest feelings and thoughts in a way that allows the reader to say, I hope, 'I have felt that too.'"

from Bill Diskin: Inpependent Tribune: Abbott's new poems trace life's journey

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:59 PM* 0 comments links to this post

and the British Council are teaming up to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1962 event, with 50 major international and Scottish authors coming together to debate the relevance of literature today and to attempt to build what organisers said would be "the most complete picture of writing and its relationship to modern life ever attempted". The modern incarnation of the 1962 event, which will take place in August, will be broadcast simultaneously online around the world.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Edinburgh festival to recreate books world-changing event of 1962

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:58 PM* 0 comments links to this post

American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War" was the nonfiction winner, and the poetry award went to Laura Kasischke's "Space, in Chains."

from Hillel Italie: Associated Press: Pearlman, Gaddis win book critics prizes

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:58 PM* 0 comments links to this post

the Cincinnati Gardens, Professional Basketball, 1959
by William Matthews

The less we paid, the more we climbed. Tendrils

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Cheap Seats, the Cincinnati Gardens, Professional Basketball, 1959 by William Matthews

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A Cold Rain the Day Before Spring
by Stuart Kestenbaum

From heaven it falls on the gray pitted ice

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: A Cold Rain the Day Before Spring by Stuart Kestenbaum

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Full Circle
by Alden Nowlan

In my youth, no one spoke of love

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Full Circle by Alden Nowlan

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In a Parlor Containing a Table
by Galway Kinnell

In a parlor containing a table

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: In a Parlor Containing a Table by Galway Kinnell

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The Nightmare Car
by Naomi Replansky

You're going downhill

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Nightmare Car by Naomi Replansky

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River
by Pat Schneider

A delicate fuzz of fog

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: River by Pat Schneider

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Saying It
by Philip Booth

Saying it. Trying

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Saying It by Philip Booth

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:57 PM* 0 comments links to this post

and here she writes about the yearning of children to find, amidst the clutter of adult life, places they can call their own.

In Childhood

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 364

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:56 PM* 0 comments links to this post

will be held in the town of York, where Sarton, one of Maine's most important authors, lived in her "house by the sea." The centennial celebration will include music, commentaries, poetry readings and even a clambake. Details are available at the Sarton 100 website, maysarton100.org. In preparation for the festivities, here's a characteristically vivid and witty poem by the poet herself.

A Parrot

from Wesley McNair: The Portland Press Herald: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:56 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Oh, Washington

(for Frederick Douglass)

Our poems should be about this city

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-notes: Oh, Washington

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[by E. Ethelbert Miller]

Please Come to My Funeral
I Need to See You

When you left

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-notes: Please Come to My Funeral I Need to See You

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:55 PM* 0 comments links to this post

secret detention of any suspects appeared to have been deleted from the draft, police will still be under no obligation to inform the families of people detained on suspected terrorist or national security offenses if the bill is passed in its current form.

Among the amended law's most outspoken critics has been controversial artist Ai Weiwei, who was held at an unknown location for several months during his investigation for "economic crimes" before his release last year.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Fears Over Secret Detentions

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Last year saw a sharp increase in the use of arbitrary detention and torture by Chinese authorities against rights activists, according to a Hong Kong-based rights group.

In a report issued at the weekend, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group said it had documented 3,833 incidences of individuals arbitrarily detained for their work in defense of human rights and 159 incidences of torture during such detentions in 2011.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Torture of Activists On the Rise

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:55 PM* 0 comments links to this post

we spend our lives longing to see: the "smile of love." Yet there is a shadow: the "smile of deceit." Are these opposites or two aspects of the same relationship? Somehow there is a "smile of smiles" that combines the two.

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'The Smile' by William Blake

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:54 PM* 0 comments links to this post

alterations do a fine job of conveying a poem's spirit. Rather than using the literal "shriveled" to describe a sail, he says it's "grey with mildew." Rather than telling us that "dead bodies" are smuggled into "a silent world," he says "the dead" are so transported. In general, while one can quibble about Robertson's book, "The Deleted World" is pleasurable whether or not it's a good translation of [Tomas] Transtromer.

from David Orr: The New York Times: Versions: Tomas Transtromer's Poems and the Art of Translation

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:53 PM* 0 comments links to this post

I have performed alternating poetry and music with the Takacz String Quartet, and last year Bruce Springsteen and I did a show where Bruce played behind poems like "Shirt" and "Jersey Rain"--and that actually worked surprisingly well. But the music that seems to most naturally fit is jazz. That's why we call it "POEMJAZZ."

from Robert Pinsky: Democrat and Chronicle: Former U.S. poet laureate teams up with pianist for 'POEMJAZZ'

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:52 PM* 0 comments links to this post

sharing of private information," says Joseph Turow, professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and author of The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Work. "But they are allowing it, partly because they want to get stuff done, also because they don't know how to stop it, and because they don't yet see an urgent reason to do so."

from John Timpane: The Philadelphia Inquirer: Is Google privacy shift a net loss? Users differ

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[Eugenio] Montale was the most important Italian poet of the 20th century--according to me, but most who read a great deal of poetry would agree (and Italy had many fine poets in those 100 years). Soldier in World War I, journalist, well-traveled literary and music critic, he was awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize for Literature, six years before his death. It wasn't until the 1970s that readers and translators in English began to wake up in numbers to his precise, somber voice.

from John Timpane: The Philadelphia Inquirer: A poet in splendid translation

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:51 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Graham Greene, say, or Muriel Spark, or François Mauriac--have proved so good at limning the inner space of character. They do not see the person as a product of causation, but as one who acts out of deliberate motives, who risks the consequences of transgression, and for whom the search for God is the search for a judge who can free them from their self-condemnation.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Why Catholic novelists are so good

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:51 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Kenya Noon

Girls in bright dresses shaded with grime

from The Christian Science Monitor: Kenya Noon

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:50 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Self-Portrait as Amnesiac

I never saw the fauna of this world,

from Granta: Self-Portrait as Amnesiac

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:50 PM* 0 comments links to this post

By Petrarch, translated by Nicholas Kilmer

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: 192: 'Love, let us wait'

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:49 PM* 0 comments links to this post

have to face, both in our country and around the world, that are dismissed as something we just have to 'deal with'.

"Well I don't want to deal with anything. Inequality is inequality and the fact it exists should be a problem for everyone--men and women."

[by Bridget Minamore]

Hypocrites & DD's

from Huffington Post: The Weekend Poem: A Poem For International Women's Day: Bridget Minamore Performs 'Hypocrites And Double Ds' (Video)

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:49 PM* 0 comments links to this post

. . . This world's last Cup Final's

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Extra Time Meltdown

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:48 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Calvin Forbes's "Momma Said" with a 2009 article about a mother giving her adult son a lesson on baking Irish soda bread--"Nanny's Recipe, Still in Demand."

from The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'Momma Said'

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:48 PM* 0 comments links to this post

For Sale
Sixty hectares of empty sky

from The Oregonian: Poetry: 'For Sale,' by Carlos Reyes

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:47 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Between the neighbor's cherry trees

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'The House on Laurel Hill Lane'

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:47 PM* 0 comments links to this post

I remember my father

from Post-Bulletin: Poem: I remember my father

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:46 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Ode to El Cabrito

More than sheep and cow

from San Antonio Express-News: Poem: 'Dreaming in Noir, Chapter One'

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:46 PM* 0 comments links to this post

"The Fish, the Man, and the Spirit"--I must have been in college--I remember doing a double-take. A poem involving a crabby dialogue between a fish and a man stood out radically from the field of English Romantic poetry I was reading then, wherein a man immersed in a landscape typically falls into a quiet meditation.

from Slate: Surf and Turf

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:45 PM* 0 comments links to this post

saying you forgave me

by Ralph Earle

It was about the time the first

from The Sun Magazine: Poetry: After the e-mail saying you forgave me

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:43 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Faith and enjoyed writing, poetry and short stories

from Morning Sun: John Ronald Gallagher

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:43 PM* 0 comments links to this post

ever since he was a teen. In November, he donated several volumes of poetry and about 750 other pieces of art to Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt.

In World War II, Oshiro spent time in an internment camp. Despite that, he joined the U.S. Army and worked for six years as a translator and Japanese language instructor.

from Times Herald-Record: Newburgh poet laureate Hide Oshiro dead at 101

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:42 PM* 0 comments links to this post

as a poet as he had already published a few books, like his most famous 'La ragazza Carla', which was released in 1962.

from AGI.it: Italian poet Elio Pagliarani passed away

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 7:42 PM* 0 comments links to this post

throughout her life as an advocate for women's equality. Poetry, music and libraries were special interests and she published her poems in 2005.

from The Holland Sentinel: Marge Shelden, 86

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 10:52 PM* 0 comments links to this post

News Article Tape:

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Radio Free Asia: China Blocks Poet from Award

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Phayul.com: Woeser under house arrest, Barred from collecting Prince Claus Award

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The Majalla: A Tribute to Adonis

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Today's Zaman: Poetry and translation: The art of dead men writing to each other

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Al Jazeera: Q&A : The poet of Kandahar

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Himal Southasian: Helmand, how calm you flow

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The Economist: The Q&A: John Burnside: What makes you write poetry?

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Camden New Journal: Andrew Motion: 'Riots were horrible manifestation of lack of educational opportunity'

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The Gazette: Where Al Purdy found his voice

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Granta: Brodsky's Room and a Half

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The Times Literary Supplement: For Ruthie Rogers in Venice

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Burlington Free Press: Lawyer: Man with stolen Frost papers to do right

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Burlington Free Press: Vermont man pleads not guilty in Robert Frost theft

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Bloomberg: Shiller: Walt Whitman, The First Artist of Finance

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Bryan Appleyard: from The Sunday Times: April is the Cruellest Copyright

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Bryan Appleyard: New Statesman: The God wars

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Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record-Eagle: On Poetry: Calm amidst political storms

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Marianne Combs: Minnesota Public Radio: State of the Arts: Minnesota Poetry: Heid Erdrich's 'Own Your Own: Cellular Changes'

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Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Poet Edward Thomas's Hampshire--video

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Alison Flood: The Guardian: Arabic book award withheld over lack of suitable candidates

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Alison Flood: The Guardian: Blue toon: Dr Seuss's book of nudes reveals his adult side

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Alison Flood: The Guardian: Poet laureate composes Olympics 2012 tribute

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Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Sixtieth Anniversary of Paramahansa Yogananda's Mahasamadhi

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Class Picture, 1954 by Billy Collins

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: In Art Rowanberry's Barn by Wendell Berry

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: March by David Budbill

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Post Hoc by Jennifer Maier

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Revival by Luci Shaw

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: When I Lost My Hands by Greg Hewett

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Winter Wood Arrives by Mary Oliver

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Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 363

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Wesley McNair: The Portland Press Herald: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

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Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'The Harp' by Emily Brontë

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Michael Rosen: The Guardian: Sorry, there's no such thing as 'correct grammar'

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Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Sonnet XXXI by Sir Philip Sidney

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Katherine Schulten: The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'To the Ladies'

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The Barnes and Noble Review: The Guardians: An Elegy

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The Barnes and Noble Review: Barney Rosset, 1922-2012

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The Brooklyn Rail: Double Exposure

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The Brooklyn Rail: from Periodic Companions

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The Brooklyn Rail: from tidelands [latde/latte]

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The Brooklyn Rail: Hell's Angels

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The Brooklyn Rail: Two Sonnets for Joe Green

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The Brooklyn Rail: Seven

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The Caravan: Poetry: Four Poems

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The Christian Science Monitor: Where You Were Headed

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Foreign Policy in Focus: To the Valley in the Morning with Blood and Guts and Fear

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Granta: Promenading

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The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Helmut Frielinghaus: Words in Farewell

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Guernica: Poetry: An Early Morning in Daylight-Saving Summer

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Guernica: Poetry: Many Small Children

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Morning Star: Well Versed: What Passing Bells

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PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'November Full Moon'

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Powells: Review-A-Day: The Poetry of Heartbreak

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San Antonio Express-News: Poem: 'Dreaming in Noir, Chapter One'

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Slate: "Mug"--By Michael Ryan

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The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Hospital Waiting Room

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Western Telegraph: Caldey Island death remains a mystery

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Dawn: Renowned archivist Lutfullah Khan passes away

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The Daily Independent: Jayne D. Roberts

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Dawn: 'Poet of rebellion' passes away

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San Francisco Chronicle: Slater, Alfred

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The Durango Herald: Vera Francis Newton Tavenner

Blog Entry Tape:

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Radio Free Asia: China Blocks Poet from Award

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Phayul.com: Woeser under house arrest, Barred from collecting Prince Claus Award

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The Majalla: A Tribute to Adonis

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Today's Zaman: Poetry and translation: The art of dead men writing to each other

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Al Jazeera: Q&A : The poet of Kandahar

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Himal Southasian: Helmand, how calm you flow

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The Economist: The Q&A: John Burnside: What makes you write poetry?

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Camden New Journal: Andrew Motion: 'Riots were horrible manifestation of lack of educational opportunity'

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The Gazette: Where Al Purdy found his voice

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Granta: Brodsky's Room and a Half

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The Times Literary Supplement: For Ruthie Rogers in Venice

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Burlington Free Press: Lawyer: Man with stolen Frost papers to do right

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Burlington Free Press: Vermont man pleads not guilty in Robert Frost theft

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Bloomberg: Shiller: Walt Whitman, The First Artist of Finance

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Bryan Appleyard: from The Sunday Times: April is the Cruellest Copyright

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Bryan Appleyard: New Statesman: The God wars

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Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record-Eagle: On Poetry: Calm amidst political storms

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Marianne Combs: Minnesota Public Radio: State of the Arts: Minnesota Poetry: Heid Erdrich's 'Own Your Own: Cellular Changes'

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Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Poet Edward Thomas's Hampshire--video

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Alison Flood: The Guardian: Arabic book award withheld over lack of suitable candidates

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Alison Flood: The Guardian: Blue toon: Dr Seuss's book of nudes reveals his adult side

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Alison Flood: The Guardian: Poet laureate composes Olympics 2012 tribute

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Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Sixtieth Anniversary of Paramahansa Yogananda's Mahasamadhi

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Class Picture, 1954 by Billy Collins

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: In Art Rowanberry's Barn by Wendell Berry

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: March by David Budbill

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Post Hoc by Jennifer Maier

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Revival by Luci Shaw

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: When I Lost My Hands by Greg Hewett

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Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Winter Wood Arrives by Mary Oliver

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Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 363

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Wesley McNair: The Portland Press Herald: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

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Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'The Harp' by Emily Brontë

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Michael Rosen: The Guardian: Sorry, there's no such thing as 'correct grammar'

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Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Sonnet XXXI by Sir Philip Sidney

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Katherine Schulten: The New York Times: Poetry Pairing: 'To the Ladies'

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The Barnes and Noble Review: The Guardians: An Elegy

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The Barnes and Noble Review: Barney Rosset, 1922-2012

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The Brooklyn Rail: Double Exposure

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The Brooklyn Rail: from Periodic Companions

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The Brooklyn Rail: from tidelands [latde/latte]

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The Brooklyn Rail: Hell's Angels

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The Brooklyn Rail: Two Sonnets for Joe Green

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The Brooklyn Rail: Seven

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The Caravan: Poetry: Four Poems

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The Christian Science Monitor: Where You Were Headed

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Foreign Policy in Focus: To the Valley in the Morning with Blood and Guts and Fear

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Granta: Promenading

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The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Helmut Frielinghaus: Words in Farewell

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Guernica: Poetry: An Early Morning in Daylight-Saving Summer

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Guernica: Poetry: Many Small Children

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Morning Star: Well Versed: What Passing Bells

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PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'November Full Moon'

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Powells: Review-A-Day: The Poetry of Heartbreak

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San Antonio Express-News: Poem: 'Dreaming in Noir, Chapter One'

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Slate: "Mug"--By Michael Ryan

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The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Hospital Waiting Room

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Western Telegraph: Caldey Island death remains a mystery

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Dawn: Renowned archivist Lutfullah Khan passes away

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The Daily Independent: Jayne D. Roberts

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Dawn: 'Poet of rebellion' passes away

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San Francisco Chronicle: Slater, Alfred

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The Durango Herald: Vera Francis Newton Tavenner

*posted by Rus Bowden at 9:05 PM* 0 comments links to this post

Dear Poetry Aficionados,

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

It's another trip around the world this week in our News at Eleven section. We start in China, and don't get to the USA until the 10th and 11th links. That first story is about the house arrest of poet and blogger Tsering Woeser. Anything you say about China and its treatment of artists and poets is an understatement, unless you say something like heartless, evil thugs, reckless, uncaring hoodlums who need to be put in their place. And that doesn't quite get there either, does it. Chinese authorities, these punk bullies just keep abusing people, and should not be governing, rather they should be imprisoned.

In the next section, Great Regulars, we have another big showing this week. And that's another journey around the planet and the world of ideas.

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:48 PM* 0 comments links to this post

was going to come to present it too, but the Chinese embassy in the Netherlands refused him a visa and he couldn't come to Beijing. Also, the Dutch embassy in China has been warned that they are not allowed to give me the award," she [poet Tsering Woeser] wrote on Twitter under the username @Degewa.

She said was told she is not allowed to leave her house without permission for one month and that police are stationed outside her building.

from Radio Free Asia: China Blocks Poet from Award
then Phayul.com: Woeser under house arrest, Barred from collecting Prince Claus Award

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:47 PM* 0 comments links to this post

approach to conflicts and his rejection of tyranny--whether that of dictators or revolutionaries--leaves him with many detractors who cannot find satisfaction in his refusal to settle for rigid extremes. He is insistent that the welfare of the individual and the individual's freedom to think, write, and act unhindered takes precedence over any overarching ideological vision, however emancipatory it may perceive itself and actually be.

from The Majalla: A Tribute to Adonis

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:46 PM* 0 comments links to this post

possible in Turkish due to the narrow sound range of the language, the poet lists the primary recurring word constellations that haunted him in "Gül" as ay (moon, or the expression "ah!"), ayı (the animal bear), aya (to the moon or holy) and ayva (quince); gül, which means both rose and to smile; and kırağı (frost), which can be broken down to a number of meanings, including "meadow," the verb "to break," "poison" and "web."

"It is much harder to sustain obsessive aural sequences in English, so it is impossible to literally translate a piece such as 'Gül,' which plays off the multiple meanings of words, because without the obsessive quality of the language you don't have a poem. This is an issue I spent two-and-a-half years grappling with," the poet recalled.

from Today's Zaman: Poetry and translation: The art of dead men writing to each other

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:46 PM* 0 comments links to this post

as a child one loves most, and that place doesn't have to be too beautiful or too peaceful. There would be prettier places, prettier scenes, but it is in our nature that the place we first get to know, we first open our eyes to, we love more than anywhere else. The place feels like the mother's embrace, like the cradle.

from Al Jazeera: Q&A : The poet of Kandahar
then Himal Southasian: Helmand, how calm you flow

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:46 PM* 0 comments links to this post

for quite some time, but as soon as they are written down, the register clears, as it were, and I have to work with what is on the paper. I think of it as being similar to working with metal: as long as the lines are in my head, they are warm and malleable; when they are written down, they are less workable, a little like when worked metal is plunged into a cooling tank. Not much happens on paper, and though I type the poems up later, I would very rarely make changes at that stage.

from The Economist: The Q&A: John Burnside: What makes you write poetry?

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:45 PM* 0 comments links to this post

pressing on [Andrew] Motion's agenda: "The next thing to take over my life in a big way," as he describes it.

He is working with the Department for Education to roll out the competition--provisionally called Poetry By Heart --to 500 schools beginning, he hopes, next year.

It will target some of the most challenging readers--the "real refuseniks".

from Camden New Journal: Andrew Motion: 'Riots were horrible manifestation of lack of educational opportunity'

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*posted by Rus Bowden at 8:44 PM* 0 comments links to this post

masterpiece. But it's redolent of literary history. The young Michael Ondaatje, an aspiring writer new to Canada, went to stay there; [Al] Purdy welcomed him, as he did so many others. His poem "House Guest" describes an earlier, longer visit by the Communist writer Milton Acorn; for two months the pair quarrelled about politics, drank, wrote poems, and listened to "how the new house built with salvaged old lumber/bent a little in the wind and dreamt of the trees it came from."

from The Gazette: Where Al Purdy found his voice

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Poetry & Poets in Rags

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

March 13th Poetic Ticker Clicking

March 13th forum announcement

News at Eleven: [Irving Layton's] continuing relevance,

News at Eleven: Two people separated by thousands

News at Eleven: In the end, though, [Gail Carson] Levine's

News at Eleven: Rainhat's gently staggering poems

News at Eleven: "What drove them to fight

News at Eleven: Because poetry lends itself well

News at Eleven: [Jack] Gilbert's career-embracing

News at Eleven: Considering the backwardness of

News at Eleven: The aim of any magazine must,

News at Eleven: Maybe there's a suspicion,

News at Eleven (Back Page): "Twenty-six cases make it clear

Great Regulars: It wasn't until 1956,

Great Regulars: Eavan Boland: I really did. I

Great Regulars: John Pass won the Governor General's Award

Great Regulars: Todd Boss grew up on eighty-acre cattle

Great Regulars: Anthony Abbott cares about how readers

Great Regulars: The Edinburgh International Book Festival

Great Regulars: Maya Jasanoff's "Liberty's Exiles:

Great Regulars: Cheap Seats,

Great Regulars: Sarah A. Chavez is a California poet,

Great Regulars: From May 3-6, the May Sarton Centennial

Great Regulars: [by E. Ethelbert Miller]

Great Regulars: While a clause allowing the

Great Regulars: This poem begins with the smile

Great Regulars: That said, some of [Robin] Robertson's

Great Regulars: Yes, very much so.

Great Regulars: "People feel creeped out about this

Great Regulars: I think that is why Catholic novelists--

Great Regulars: [by Alisha Hipwell]

Great Regulars: [by John Burnside]

Great Regulars: 192: 'Love, let us wait'

Great Regulars: "There are so many issues women

Great Regulars: by Michael Horovitz

Great Regulars: This week's Poetry Pairing matches

Great Regular: [by Carlos Reyes]

Great Regulars: By Megan Snyder-Camp

Great Regulars: [by Suzanne Cravens]

Great Regulars: [by Laurie Ann Guerrero]

Great Regulars: The first time I read Leigh Hunt's

Great Regulars: After the e-mail

Poetic Obituaries: John [Ronald Gallagher] was of the Catholic

Poetic Obituaries: [Hide Oshiro] wrote one haiku every day

Poetic Obituaries: [Elio Pagliarani] had already been known

Poetic Obituaries: [Marjorie "Marge" (Landon) Shelden] was known

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

March 6th Poetic Ticker Clicking

March 6th forum announcement

News at Eleven: "Originally, the president of the foundation

News at Eleven: Adonis' measured, careful, and nuanced

News at Eleven: A phenomenon that [Murat] Nemet-Nejat deems

News at Eleven: The place where one crawls in

News at Eleven: I can hold several lines in my head

News at Eleven: But right now there's something more

News at Eleven: Nobody would call it an architectural

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