April 25th forum announcement

Dear Poetry Fans,

Poetry & Poets in Rags

You'll find two poems by IBPCommunity laureate JB Mulligan in our Great Regulars section this week. I workshop and converse with him on one of the private boards now, but knew him, his fine insights and poetry, from sharing Poets.org for a couple years, and then The Atlantic's Writers Workshop. You'll find his poems in Cafe Oleh's column in The Jersusalem Post.

There's this odd theme that arose in several of the articles in News at Eleven. It has to do with either dying or cancellation and then coming back to life, something I've experienced. It's in our headliner, and our Back Page stories this week, for instance, but you'll notice it elsewhere too.

We have an addition to our Great Regulars section and a cancellation. Edmonton Journal enters with "The Poetry Project" as The Monroe Times's "Poets Corner" exits.

Also, the Poetry & Poets in Rags Blogspot is up and now (correctly) set to accept comments. So if you read an article, and would like to see how the conversation is going, or have something to say, please come by. It should become a center where inter-forum poets can exchange thoughts, but also where writers and others from the news world and elsewhere will come and join the mix as well. It's all good.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags Blogspot

IBPC Home

IBPC Newswire

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News at Eleven: [David Biespiel] expects poems

to have "formal clarity," which doesn't necessarily refer to rhyme and meter: "You have to get a feeling when you read a poem of the shape of it, the way it moves from top to bottom, the argument, the stanzas, the lines . . . that all of it is strongly made. I think form and art is crucial. Otherwise it's no different than (two people) talking on the phone."

from The Portland Tribune: Portlander resurrects Poetry Northwest

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News at Eleven: Wanda Coleman

Wanda Why Aren't You Dead

from HuntingtonNews.Net: A Poem a Day: Day 21: Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead by Wanda Coleman

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News at Eleven: The George Russell

who had lived (and was indeed still living) to be a contemporary of Yeats in the 1920s found himself recollected in The Trembling of the Veil (1922) as someone who "saw visions continually, perhaps more continually than any modern man since Swedenborg".

from The Times Literary Supplement: Yeats's ghosts

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News at Eleven: I do not write "poetic" prose,

but feel that my outlook on life and my perceptions of events are those of a poet. Whether in prose or verse, all creative writing is mysteriously connected with music and I always hope this factor is apparent throughout my work.

from The Guardian: In praise of poetry

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News at Eleven: "Up through the roof

the smoke rolled on

His loss poor Dave bemoaned.

Then eastward by its mission drawn,

It reached Dock Ritcheys home."

from The Sentinel: From the Ashes: Poem recounts 1911 fire

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News at Eleven: These lines, in a subtle

departure from the original, dramatise the way in which an environment believed to be safe, even miraculous, suddenly, unexpectedly, becomes dangerous. Epiphany turns to slaughter.

from The Guardian: What Actaeon saw

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News at Eleven: In her 2004 collection, In the Salt Marsh,

Nancy Willard shares her passion for observing the mysteries of the natural world.

The Ladybugs

from HuntingtonNews.Net: A Poem a Day: Day 24: The Ladybugs by Nancy Willard

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News at Eleven: Regarding "Doctor’s Orders." I woke

in a panic believing I was being chased by foot stranglers. "Idiot," my wife said. "You went to bed with tight socks." Not exactly a story that advances the transcendental movement, but the experience inspired the poem.

from Portsmouth Herald: 2006 Random Acts of Poetry Anthology

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News at Eleven: Hazard Response

Tom Clark

from National Public Radio: 'Hazard Response'

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News at Eleven: "I have a number of books

and a big volume, an anthology, of Chinese poetry," [Billy] Collins said, "and regularly, very often before I write, I'll just flip it open and read a few pages for the clarity and the lucidity and the very natural vocabulary. It's very calming, and haiku is too."

from Pasadena Weekly: From Victoria's Secret to Emily Dickinson's clothes

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News at Eleven (The Back Page): We got an order from higher up

to tell us to close down this Web site. I’m not allowed to tell you the reason for the closure," she said.

Asked if this meant the government, she said: "Yes, yes, it was."

from Radio Free Asia: China Closes, Reopens Shandong-Based Poetry Forum

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Great Regulars: FIELD

by E.D. Blodgett

from Edmonton Journal: The Poetry Project

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Great Regulars: "Who did it belong to

before?" he [Christopher Gutkind] asks of his own moniker, before complaining that "my name is mine/yet it was given me by others/and others constantly use it/and I'm jealous".

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Old times

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Great Regulars: Finally it’s warm,

and the days are brighter, and the kids are playing outside.

These two poets [David Moreau and Tom Lyford] stepped back into the sounds and colors of their childhood games, and by doing so bring you memories of April baseball and jumping rope as fresh as last week!

from Elizabeth W. Garber: Village Soup: A Year of Poetry from a Wealth of Maine Poets: Playing games

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Great Regulars: When I complained

about some of the tedious jobs I had as a boy, my mother would tell me, Ted, all work is honorable. In this poem, Don Welch gives us a man who's been fixing barbed wire fences all his life.

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 056

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Great Regulars: The river roars like a lion,

its foam recalls a fleece, it "flutes" like a songbird, and lows or booms with bovine majesty. It contains all of creation, like some kind of primal, protean life-force.

Throughout the poem, [Gerard Manley] Hopkins explores the way nature flows between extremes to form one eternal circuit.

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Today

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Great Regulars: a skin of small content

J.B. Mulligan

from Cafe Oleh: Jerusalem Post: Readers Verses: Poets Corner

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Great Regulars: The poet is Lynn Rigney Schott,

whose father, Bill Rigney, was a major league player and manager. I found her poem in Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball .

I like the candid, unfussy way the baseball metaphors arrive: half the season for the midpoint of life at 35, warmups and the oiled glove for preparations not yet fulfilled.

from Robert Pinsky: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

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Great Regulars: Ted Kooser: They knew I was writing poems.

I never hid it from them. I don’t think they ever thought I was cheating on them. So, I think they probably saw it as being rather peculiar, that I was doing that sort of thing, but nobody ever suggested I shouldn’t be doing it. I think that would be different on Madison Avenue or Wall Street, where you’re really expected to be doing 110 percent for the company.

from Andrew Varnon: Guernica: The Crossing Over

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Great Regulars: The more I saw of my fellow-passengers,

the less I was tempted to the lyric note. Comparatively few of the men were below thirty; many were married, and encumbered with families; not a few were already up in years; and this itself was out of tune with my imaginations, for the ideal emigrant should certainly be young.

from Daily Times: Purple Patch: The emigrant --Robert Louis Stevenson

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Great Regulars: Epilogue

by Muriel Spark

from The Guardian: Original poetry: Epilogue by Muriel Spark

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Great Regulars: Sanctuary

By Susan Carman

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase

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Great Regulars: There comes a time

to say goodbye. That time has come. This will be the last article from the Poets Corner. No need for grades or comments.

from The Monroe Times: Poets Corner

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Great Regulars: "While You Were Out of Town"

By Robert Wrigley

from Slate: "While You Were Out of Town" By Robert Wrigley

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Poetic Obituaries: The Rev. William Sloane Coffin,

a United Church of Christ minister known globally for his peace and justice advocacy, died April 12 at his home in rural Strafford, Vermont.

from PrideSource: 'Pastor, prophet, poet' William Sloane Coffin dies at 81

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Poetic Obituaries: The Poetry Man

has died.

John King, 80, a former principal, coach and teacher at Knoxville High School, who was most recently known as the "Poetry Man" at Mable Woolsey Elementary School, died Tuesday morning.

from Galesburg Register-Mail: Knoxville's 'Poetry Man' a King and a clown

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Poetic Obituaries: [Jesse] Knowles told of his experience

in "They," a story in verse which he wrote in April 1943 while still captive. The war poem has earned a worldwide audience in recent years through numerous Internet postings.

from The Times-Picayune: WWII POW Jesse Knowles, longtime state lawmaker dead at 86

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Poetic Obituaries: A tabletop shrine to Tony Padron

sits in the living room, with family photos and Tony's art and poems.

"Now that we know what happened, we have told our relatives. They can't believe it. He was such a good person. Sometimes, when people act badly, what goes around comes around," Patricia said. "But my brother didn't deserve this."

from The Contra Costa Times: Bizarre tale ends search for brother

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April 18th forum announcement

Dear Poetry Fans,

Poetry & Poets in Rags

This is quite the issue, one of those times I cannot believe the fine poetry articles that didn't make the cut. But it is National Poetry Month. Both The Washington Post and The Guardian have four articles in our three sections this week. Both of these newspapers are worth checking out for their poetry items that did not make the cut. And be sure to scroll all the way down to the very last link in Poetic Obituaries, where you'll find The Guardian's obit on Dame Muriel Spark. At the end of that article are other very good links on her.

My thanks to those I lifted news links from this week, namely Frank Wilson at his blog Books Inq. and Effie at The Town.

Also, I received news that the good forum and member of IBPC, Chiaro-Oscuro will formally close this Thursday night.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

Poetry & Poets in Rags

IBPC Home

IBPC Newswire

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News at Eleven: The letters, which were never sent,

ended up in her [Claudia Emerson's] book of poetry, "Late Wife," for which the 49-year-old English professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va., earned a 2006 Pulitzer Prize, announced Monday.

from HappyNews: College Professor Wins Pulitzer for Poetry

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News at Eleven: "A Barred Owl"

by Richard Wilbur

from U.S. Newswire: Richard Wilbur Wins 2006 Lilly Prize; $100,000 Award One of Largest to Poets

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News at Eleven: "In this study, I will ask

you questions about poems or poetry. Poetry is unique because it uses rhythm and language in verses to create images in the mind of the reader. Sometimes poetry rhymes, but not always. I will use the words 'poetry' or 'poems' to refer to verses intended to be understood as poems, not as part of something else such as rap, song lyrics, Bible verses, or greeting card messages."

from PoetryFoundation.org: Poetry in America: Report Summary

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News at Eleven: All poems are different,

all poets are different, and so you have to let poems teach you how to read them. This, just by itself, was a huge life lesson for me. It helped teach me how to read people. I'm serious! People are at least as various as poems--so why not allow each new person--and each familiar person--to teach us how to read them?

from Dragonfire: Sketchy Species: Reading poetry, living poetry

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News at Eleven: A short list of well-respected online

magazines that publish poetry might include Slate.com, Electronic Poetry Review (www.epoetry.org), La Petite Zine (www.lapetitezine.org), How2 (www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal), and Octopus Magazine (www.octopusmagazine.com). These and other publications, like the vast Web-poetry archives UbuWeb (www.ubu.com) and PENNsound (www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound) bring poetry to the screens (and headpones) of thousands of readers every day.

from Publishers Weekly: Poetry Off the Books

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News at Eleven: Listen to great poets

reading their own works.

"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)

"The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

"How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" by Robert Browning (1812-1889)

"America" by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

"Wonder" by Sharon Olds (1942- )

"Parsley" by Rita Dove (1952- )

"Some Herons" by Mary Oliver (1935- )

from The Washington Post: Poetry On Audio

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News at Eleven: Now I Understand

Linda Gregg

from National Public Radio: 'Now I Understand'

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News at Eleven: Then, moments later, they gave

a collective sigh when [X.J.] Kennedy read,

"Time to plant trees is when you're young,
So you will have them to walk among--
So, aging, you can walk in shade
That you and time together made."

from The Christian Science Monitor: A poet who celebrates the joy of verse

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News at Eleven: In "Traffic," the poet

returns to Earth after having "wandered a lifetime among galaxies" to find "the people gone, ruin taking their place. . . . Freddie Bauer is dead. . . . Agnes McSparren is dead. . . . Harry Bailey is dead. . . . Karl Kapp is dead,/who loaded his van at dawn,/conveyor belt supplying butter, cottage cheese, heavy cream."

from The Washington Post: American Idyll

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News at Eleven: [Chinua Achebe's] failure

to persuade others against violence is reflected in "1966", written just after the quelling of Biafran secession, in which he sees the "absentminded" descent into war as a "diamond-tipped drill point" delving towards the "rare artesian hatred/that once squirted warm/blood in God's face/confirming His first/disappointment in Eden".

from The Guardian: War and remembrance

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News at Eleven (Back Page): U.S. District Judge Brian Sandoval

has ruled that Jacob Behymer-Smith would experience irreparable harm if a restraining order were denied him and ordered that the Coral Academy of Science defendants "are restrained and enjoined from prohibiting Jacob Behymer-Smith from reciting Auden's poem, The More Loving One, at the Poetry Out Loud competition on April 22, 2006."

from National Coalition Against Censorship: Nevada School Attacks "Profane" Speech in Poem

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Great Regulars: Strikingly real images

are scattered among anecdotes, one-liners (". . . epic discontent in a state/where men were so abundant/led her to grumble that/though the odds were good/the goods were odd.") and musical reveries. Playfulness and internal music carry the words swinging and dancing from line to line, and that’s before you even get to the fiddle and music poems.

from Angela Becerra: WOAI: Crash Survivor Turns Traveling Poet

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Great Regulars: The name of the project?

Spoke'n'word.

There's no doubt that from the moment this pun was conceived, a union of the apparently disparate activities of cycling and reading was essential in order that it might be unleashed on the world.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Culture Vulture: Moving poetry

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Great Regulars: Early spring is the time

for using up the last of the canned peaches and the frozen strawberries, and the woodpiles get lean. The following poem is a poignant tribute to these last gifts of seasons past. Lauren Murray, from Searsport, has been writing poetry and finding solace in poetry since she could spell.

from Elizabeth W. Garber: Village Soup: A Year of Poetry from a Wealth of Maine Poets: Honoring Maine’s gracious fine poet Constance Hunting

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Great Regulars: [Charles Bernstein] then goes on

to accuse the "mainstream" Academy of promoting only mainstream or "safe poetry" and excluding the innovative poets whose works "form the inchoate heart of the art of poetry." Bernstein argues that the promotion of "easy listening" poetry does the disservice of keeping poetry irrelevant in American culture.

from Linda Sue Grimes: BellaOnline: Is April the Cruelest Month for Poetry?

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Great Regulars: A circus is an assemblage

of illusions, and here Jo McDougall, a Kansas poet, shows us a couple of performers, drab and weary in their ordinary lives, away from the lights at the center of the ring.

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 055

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Great Regulars: It should be an honor

recognizing excellence as an artist. I sometimes worry that Rita Dove, Bob Hass and I ruined the position by making it seem that the Laureate must be active and extroverted or public.

Shy people like Elizabeth Bishop, older people like Stanley Kunitz, private people like Louise Gluck, have brought honor to the post.

from Robert Pinsky: The Washington Post: Book World Live

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Great Regulars: S.O.S.

Dorothy Molloy

from The Guardian: Original poetry: S.O.S.

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Great Regulars: Habit

[by Jane Hirshfield]

from The Oregonian: Poetry

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Great Regulars: "Eating the Peach"

By Henri Cole

from Slate: "Eating the Peach" By Henri Cole

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Great Regulars: This stunning small poem

does so much to capture the spirit of the time and of great-souled Rosa Parks in a few words. It made me think how much Rita Dove's poems are about the right to a vivid inner life.

from The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

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Poetic Obituaries: At first, the family doubted

the son [U.S. Army Pfc. Roland Calderon-Ascencio] would go through with his plan.

"He wanted to be a poet, a businessman, even a model at one point," said his mother. "The military thing came from nowhere."


from South Florida Sun-Sentinel: South Florida soldier killed by bomb in Iraq

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Poetic Obituaries: In a poem titled, "Life is

what you make it," he [Edward Hill Jr.] wrote, "All my bridges lie in rubble, I'm crushed from all my trouble. I'm begging for some help, and I'm screaming for a shovel. But my problems seem to double and my hope begins to die. I'm looking for the truth, but I'm living in a lie. I hate this other guy."

from The Martha's Vineyard Times: 26-year-old jail inmate hangs himself in cell

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Poetic Obituaries: [Harold] Horwood was also

among the province's most prolific writers, publishing about two dozen books ranging from history and biography to fiction and poetry.

from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Nfld. writer Harold Horwood dies at 82

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Poetic Obituaries: "Our society is situated

in such a way that it is not safe for women," Ms. [Mary-Ann] Ossman told The Blade in 1998. In an interview the next year, she described her own 21-year marriage as a battlefield.

from The Toledo Blade: Activist counseled victims of violence

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Poetic Obituaries: William Reese Petty, 51,

professor of American and contemporary literature, American drama and poetry composition at OSU, died of a heart attack Thurs. March 30.

from Oregon State Daily Barometer: Long-time English prof dies

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Poetic Obituaries: [Dame Muriel Spark's] first collection,

first collection, The Fanfarlo and Other Verse, was published in 1952. A year earlier, too, she had entered a short story competition run by the Observer newspaper. Her poem, The Seraph and the Zambesi, out of nearly 7000 entries, won the £250 first prize.

from The Guardian: Dame Muriel Spark

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