Poetry & Poets in Rags

We still mourn the tragedy at Virginia Tech, this week with some perspective. So sad. Our lead story again features Nikki Giovanni. I tried to select the best news item that represented her speaking about poetry. I also wanted to be sure to bring a story featuring Lucinda Roy, another poet at Virginia Tech. She is in our second article this week.

The IBPC results are in, as we await the formatting and preparing, and the announcement e-mail from David Ayers.

I've seen the results, and our new judge Bryan Appleyard is terrific, as expected. Speaking of which, a former judge is in the news. Two of David Kirby's books are reviewed for us in News at Eleven. And be sure to scroll to our friend Sarah Crown's section of Great Regulars, where she continues to celebrate Poetry Month, and has 8 items, many poems.

Our Back Page item would, during normal times, be a headliner. In that article is a newfound poem by William Shakespeare. It is among the many wonderful poems throughout News at Eleven and Great Regulars.

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

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Rus Bowden · at 9:05 PM

but don't you know if it was preventable we would have prevented it? Thirty-two people are dead--four colleagues and a lot of students. We didn't ask your parents to send you to us so we could send you back in a box. Of course we would have prevented it. I taught that boy. I thought he was evil." [--Nikki Giovanni]

from CBS2 Chicago: Renowned Poet, Va. Tech Professor Speaks In Peoria

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Rus Bowden · at 9:04 PM

or blaming other people," [Lucinda] Roy said. "I do just want to say, though, it's such a shame if people don't listen very carefully, and if the law constricts them so that they can't do what is best for the student."

from San Jose Mercury News: Evil or vivid? Hard to discern

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Rus Bowden · at 9:03 PM

coming into a class and announcing the theme for the day would be violence and it would be a lesson "you'll never forget."

The teacher then cuts, hacks and shoots students.

from Calgary Herald: Mom decries violent poem

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Rus Bowden · at 9:02 PM

the bomb squad came, then the state police. Because of my recycling, buildings were evacuated, classes were canceled, the campus was closed. No. Not because of my recycling. Because of my dark body.

from New America Media: War on Terror Reaches the Poet

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Rus Bowden · at 9:01 PM

on this urban poetry walk is the bus stop at Maple and Grant avenues, where the Langston Hughes poem "Mother to Son" is posted. Written in the early 1920s, this plea to a disheartened son was inspired by Hughes’ landlady, who encouraged him as he struggled to find work after dropping out of Columbia University, according to E. Ethelbert Miller, a poet and director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University in Washington. (Read the poem.)

from USINFO: Urban Poetry Walk Takes Verse to the Streets

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Rus Bowden · at 8:59 PM

work in relative obscurity, by which I mean that they have often been omitted from influential anthologies, from the syllabi of university courses and from the shortlists of major national literary awards. The chief accomplishment of Language Acts is in reviving critical interest in these poets.

from The Gazette: Anglo Montreal as poetry hub

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Rus Bowden · at 8:58 PM

were disgorging millions onto the city pavements, the battle was on. He needed to find a foothold in the precarious city, it was so easy to go under. But like the protagonist of the poem, he never really felt at home in the city; it turned my father from a poetry-loving man to a mechanical, self-absorbed one.

from Tehelka: 'A Metropolis of Destinations, a City of No Return'

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Rus Bowden · at 8:54 PM

a druggy time. The voice, which [Edward] Dorn handles with mad aplomb, continually transforms from hipster to Hollywood cowboy to mock literary, spouting scientific terms and speculations on the nature of language as it all proceeds, vaguely in the direction of Howard Hughes in Las Vegas.

from The New York Times: Black Mountain Breakdown

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Rus Bowden · at 8:52 PM

what a poem can mean. In Ultra Talk, he writes, "[F]or the greatest part of our common Western history, the poetry was, though quite formal, entirely unrhymed. Those were the days ... almost everybody went to a poetry reading at least once a week. They called it church."

from Creative Loafing: David Kirby: Flights of fancy

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Rus Bowden · at 8:52 PM

depicts one of [William] Hayley's poetic heroines, Serena, sitting forlornly in a pastoral setting, draped in a classical dress in white – the colour of melancholy.

from 24 Hour Museum: Poets in the Landscape at Pallant House Gallery Chichester

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Rus Bowden · at 8:50 PM

and rhythm, it has the assurance that is unique to the mature Shakespeare.

Though only 18 lines long, it's a precious addition to the canon, a tiny taste of what poetic glories would await us if only Love's Labour's Won ever turned up.

As the dial hand tells o'er
The same hours it had before,
Still beginning in the ending,
Circular account still lending,

from Telegraph: Is there a lost Shakespeare in your attic?

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Rus Bowden · at 6:30 PM

and poetry to musical accompaniment many times, but never to the music of Jim Pepper.

"I'm really looking forward to it," Alexie said from his home in Seattle. "I love Pepper's music. I'm not really a big jazz aficionado, but Joy Harjo gave me a CD of Pepper and I really got into it.

from Jeff Baker: The Oregonian: Taking flight in words and music

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Rus Bowden · at 6:29 PM

style of the 1920s and 1930s, celebrate hobos, prostitutes and, above all, her fugitive lover.

In one, entitled I'll Stay, [Bonnie] Parker writes:

Just like the ramblin' roses
Round the porch in summer do
Tho all the world forget you
That's the way I’ll cling to you

from Olivia Cole: The Sunday Times: Found: Bonnie's ballads to Clyde

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Rus Bowden · at 6:28 PM

that I found a few years ago I had it by heart without ever having consciously learned it ...

Tamer and Hawk by Thom Gunn

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: theblogblooks: Poem of the day: After war yesterday, today another love poem.

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I'm not so keen on the first stanza and final line, which feel to me slightly superfluous, but [Tobias] Hill's portrait of the intimate glimpses afforded from the train is one I cherish. I highly recommend the whole collection, in fact - there's a fantastic 12-poem sequence that charts the city's changing face over a year. Great stuff.

To a Boy on the Underground

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: theblogblooks: Poem of the day: Another week, another poem of the day . . . this time on summer in the city.

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And I love the unashamedly demonstrative tribute of the final section's abbreviated heroic couplets.

What a poem. I should warn you that I am now sitting at my computer, spoiling for a fight with anyone who presumes to disagree!

In Memory of WB Yeats by WH Auden

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: theblogblooks: Poem of the day: The best thing Auden ever wrote (in my very humble opinion . . .)

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[Yeats] didn't publish the poem at the time he wrote it for fear of upsetting Lady Gregory, and one can see why.

Separately, these poems are superb; read together, they're devastating. And in terms of war poetry, they blow Owen, Sassoon et al out of the water.

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: theblogblooks: Poem of the day: Finally, some Yeats.

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So, in honour of my experience, and with apologies for the crashing solipsism, I give you a poem by the wonderful Anne Stevenson, a sometime resident of the north-east, whose lines on the Tyne and its bridges always come into my mind whenever I cross the river on the train to - or from - home.

On the 17.14 out of Newcastle by Anne Stevenson

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: theblogblooks: Poem of the day: Today, something from Anne Stevenson.

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His poems are all heavily copyrighted, so here's the marvellous opening, and a link to read the rest of it somewhere more official.

In Country Sleep by Dylan Thomas

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: theblogblooks: Poem of the day: What a day--time for some Thomas.

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But what seems deadening in a single poem becomes beguiling as the poems accumulate. By limiting herself to fundamental nouns--knives, pails, snow, hearts, ice--[Sasha] Dugdale creates a spare, mythical tone that fits itself perfectly to the elemental Russian landscape in which much of her collection is set.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Staying still

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Rus Bowden · at 6:26 PM

that there were many songs of African-American and Latin mixture, around southern Mexico and British Honduras:

A de hala hombre poquito mas,
Down below for rolling go!

And:

Chyrra me Yankee, chyrra me rao,
What's de matta de loggin' no go?

from James Fenton: The Guardian: Songs of the sea

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Rus Bowden · at 6:26 PM

it says, "we're better than you because we adhere to a vague sense of self-righteousness"; it consists of ideological talking-points that demonstrate a blind political stance, ungrounded in historical fact or the reality of current events.

Kudos to [Charles] Bernstein, however, for writing a poem that is bad for you. He’s a man of his word.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: 'The Ballad of the Girlie Man'

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She and her big hips move in an expansive universe of large, profound ideas and significance that transcends the little ideas of petty thinkers like the minds that would call a big mama an unkind name because of the size of her hips.

She says, "these hips/are free hips/they don't like to be held back."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Clifton's 'homage to my hips'

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Then he supposes that being African American does not make him all that different in the things he likes as other races. So the question occurs to him: "So will my page be colored that I write?"

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Hughes' 'Theme for English B'

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The tone of the wind's deep roar, the porch sagging under time's sway, the leaves behaving like a snake all add up to "something sinister." Then the speaker surmises what is causing all this somber and sinister activity: the word is out that he is in the house alone. His secret has somehow gotten out.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Robert Frost's 'Bereft'

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Now, it is becoming clear that the speaker is once again comparing the young man's youth to nature; just as trees were once useful with their full branches, the green or youth gets bundled up and is "Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 12

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You know the sound economy of fathering offspring, because you yourself had a father, so let your son say the same thing. Get busy and marry and produce sons!

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 13

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The sun is hot, that is why the wax wings melted. No one notices that Icarus fell into the sea, even though there was a splash, which meant that Icarus was drowning.

The poem focuses on the fact that such a significant event is portrayed as insignificant to the people in the poem who were not drowning. The event was "unsignificant" and "unnoticed."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Williams and Auden

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Rus Bowden · at 6:25 PM

within the 60 works in the collection, I had to ask: At what point do pieces that move and make noise have more in common with other forms--film, maybe, or installation pieces--than with traditional fiction or poetry?

from Katie Haegele: The Philadelphia Inquirer: Getting a handle on just what is e-literature

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Rus Bowden · at 6:24 PM

human being is extreme, noise does funny things to people; neighbours have been known to kill one another over noise, and persistent or interruptive noise, the kind that prevents any continuous cognitive thought process, can make a person genuinely ill if they have not already succumbed to a murderous impulse.

from Frieda Hughes: The Times: Duck-billed platitudes

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Rus Bowden · at 6:23 PM

by Emily Dickinson.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: For the week of April 23, 2007

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Rus Bowden · at 6:21 PM

from the news. There's always a movie coming out, or a book, and every other magician has to face comparison to the legendary master. Here the California poet, Kay Ryan, encapsulates the man and says something wise about celebrity.

Houdini

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 108 (pdf)

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Rus Bowden · at 6:20 PM

an almost unceasing flood of productivity--poems, essays and journalism, as well as novels. At the end of his life, when he was suffering the effects of a lifetime of hard drinking and possibly of early Alzheimer's, he was unable to give up the habit of hours at the typewriter, even if it was just to type the word "seagulls" over and over.

from Charles McGrath: The New York Times: The Amis Inheritance

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Rus Bowden · at 6:18 PM

though not absolute--indifference include an insensitive population, a culture out of balance, the overwhelming power of context, and the elusive nature of beauty. A more optimistic possibility would be that people on their way to work automatically resist, and perhaps unconsciously recognize, the anarchic and disruptive power of beauty.

William Butler Yeats's "The Fiddler of Dooney" suggests that idea:

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

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Rus Bowden · at 6:18 PM

Aggrieved

from The American Muslim: Poetry: Aggrieved

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Audacity to speak

Mirza A. Beg

During the long night of colonialism, Urdu poets gave voice and sustenance to the freedom struggle of India. In the Urdu cadence, this poem is dedicated to all yearning to be free.

from The American Muslim: Poetry: Audacity to speak

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Khaled Nusseibeh

Forbidden Tree

from The American Muslim: Poetry: Forbidden Tree

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Rus Bowden · at 6:17 PM

by Muriel Spark

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Elegy in a Kensington Churchyard by Muriel Spark

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Rus Bowden · at 6:15 PM

by Jon Woodward

Average

from Guernica: Poetry: Average

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Four New Translations of Paul Celan

by Ian Fairley

I hear the axe has flowered,

from Guernica: Poetry: Four New Translations of Paul Celan

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Rus Bowden · at 6:15 PM

By Janet Conner

from The Kansas City Star: Poet's Corner: 'First Person Inventory'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:14 PM

How Do You Break Up with a Friend Like Jonah

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase

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Rus Bowden · at 6:12 PM

by April Bernard

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Beagle or Something

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The Room
by Stephen Dunn

from The New Yorker: Poetry: The Room

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Rus Bowden · at 6:11 PM

[by Lori Ubell]

from The Oregonian: Poetry

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Rus Bowden · at 6:11 PM

Cherry Hill High School East
I Lack All and Reason

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem

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Rus Bowden · at 6:10 PM

to Scotland, an ideal way to reacquaint ourselves with an old friend is by dipping into Lord Byron: Poems (£3.99), a new volume from Faber & Faber's series where contemporary poets introduce writers from the past. This volume is introduced by Paul Muldoon; here is one of his choices.

So, we'll go no more a-roving

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week: So We'll Go No More A Rovin'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:09 PM

London-St. Petersburg, Aug. 14, 2006
By Alfred Corn

from Slate: "In-Flight Couplets Composed During a Bomb Alert" - By Alfred Corn

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Rus Bowden · at 6:08 PM

by Elizabeth Jennings

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: 'Mild Ward of a Mental Clinic' by Elizabeth Jennings

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Rus Bowden · at 6:02 PM

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. . . of All Those We Have Loved and Lost

from Virginia Tech: In Memoriam: April 16, 2007

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Virginia Tech expresses its shock and profound sadness regarding the tragic campus shootings of April 16, 2007. To honor and remember the victims, this website has provided an opportunity for those within the university community and around the world to share condolences, thoughts, and prayers.

from Virginia Tech: April 16th Memorial Website

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For the most part, the campus of Virginia Tech looked like any other on Monday, a week after the nation's worst mass shooting. Students, laden with overstuffed book bags, shuffled across the sidewalks and greens, cradling cups of coffee and bottles of water. Books were open on desks, and chalk scratched across boards.

from The New York Times: Virginia Tech Struggles to Return to Normal

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Click on a photo to learn about the individuals who were killed in the shootings at Virginia Tech, and share your memories of the victims.

from The New York Times: The Victims

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Thoughts and prayers from those on campus and around the world continue as we remember those who lost their lives.

Click On The Names Below To Learn More About Those Who Lost Their Lives At Virginia Tech:

from CBS News: The Tragedy at Virginia Tech: In Memoriam: Victim Profiles

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The identities of Virginia Tech victims have been slowly revealed Tuesday. Here are remembrances of some of those who died.

from NPR: Virginia Tech's Victims

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Photos of the VT Massacre Victims

from Fox News: Photo Essay: The Victims

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Rus Bowden · at 6:01 PM

to read aloud: All three of her children got the benefit. She was a hilarious storyteller and an alarming mimic, although, unlike her sister Joyce Barkhouse, the children's author, she had no interest in writing. She composed only one poem in her life: It was about flying, the kind with wings, a feat she never accomplished.

from Globe and Mail: Margaret Dorothy Killam Atwood

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Rus Bowden · at 6:00 PM

[Archie Campbell] had "the soul of a poet" and loved literature, reading to his two children when they were younger and even offered to recite poetry from his death bed.

"He was a very poetic and passionate man," Campbell said of his father.

from News1130: Archie Campbell, 65, judge who headed SARS, Bernardo inquiries, dies

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Rus Bowden · at 5:59 PM

had a rich revolutionary life. As a journalist, Dang, whose real name was Truong Gia Trieu, was well-known for his incisive commentary on the government’s policies regarding corruption, the welfare of the poor and labourers, and many other issues.

from Nhan Dan: Tran Bach Dang--fine writer dies at 82

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Rus Bowden · at 5:58 PM

who published more than 40 scholarly articles and authored The Epic Voice, [Rodney] Delasanta will be remembered as an outstanding scholar who cared deeply for his students and made a lasting influence on the college.

from The Cowl: 'He was a Renaissance man'

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Rus Bowden · at 5:58 PM

of one of Nigeria's finest script writers and poets, Obinali Ebereonwu in a ghastly motor accident sent shock waves across his friends, his colleagues in the Nollywood industry, friends and kinsmen in the literary clime.

from Vanguard: Ebereonwu: In memoriam

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Rus Bowden · at 5:56 PM

students at Melbourne's Upwey High School, were missing for a week before their bodies were found yesterday, hanging from a tree in the Dandenong Ranges National Park.

From last December to February, on one of her websites, Jodie posted three odes to suicide, the second one titled Suicide in the Night.

It reads: "It's over for me, I can't take it! I hear it over and over again, It feels like it always rains.''

from The Sydney Morning Herald: Death pact teen's grim poems

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Rus Bowden · at 5:55 PM

more than 1,000 articles, books, reviews, notes and poems, and presided over organizations like the American Name Society, whose magazine he edited. He advised the Random House Dictionary and other lexicons and headed the usage committee of the American Dialect Society.

from The New York Times: Kelsie B. Harder, Name Expert, Dies at 84

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Rus Bowden · at 5:55 PM

of Tulare County, lay dying but began dictating "Apparition" a few weeks before she finally stopped breathing.

"It was peach time August
And we worked so gladly
And the dim packing shed

from The Fresno Bee: Tulare County poet laureate kept writing until the end

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Rus Bowden · at 5:54 PM

in Pretoria for the past four years.

'He was not one to compromise quality'

Patel was extremely meticulous and thorough with his work, [Bernard] Ngoepe said. As a result he would sometimes appear to others to be a bit dilatory. "But he was not one to compromise quality. He was also a scholar, a writer and a poet of note. We have lost a dedicated judge."

from Independent Online: High Court to honour Judge Patel

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Rus Bowden · at 5:53 PM

Scoville Fish Hatchery, raising mature northern pike for the purposes of stocking local lakes. He also raised pheasants, ducks, and wild turkeys. Mr. Scoville was a noted collector and historian of Plains Indian artifacts and Western artists and illustrators. His collection is known as "The Scoville Museum of the Indian Wars." He was also a fine artist and poet.

from The Chicago Tribune: Scoville, James Benson

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Rus Bowden · at 5:52 PM

She wrote poetry, danced hip hop and had a beautiful singing voice.

from St. Petersburg Times: 2 killed as girl steps in motorcycle's path

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Rus Bowden · at 5:52 PM

were multi-faceted. Her eye for details, whether in pen and ink or in clay, were incomparable. She loved to read, collect and write poetry. After being disabled in a car accident, she became a loving and devoted mother and homemaker who was committed to helping others with debilitating illnesses and physical disabilities.

from The News Journal: Whitt, Amy

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