Poetry & Poets in Rags

The smear campaign turned double scandal has become a fiasco. We headline with six articles that look from different angles at Ruth Padel stepping down from the Oxford poetry post. This is also covered again in News at Eleven, and by Sarah Crown and Judith Fitzgerald in Great Regulars. But there's more to the poetry news than this story, and a lot is centered in the UK, with the Hay Festival on, and with Frieda Hughes and Andrew Motion having books out for review. Be sure to check the Back Page link too, where Simon Armitage (who's going to war as a poet) discusses Sir Gawain and the Green Night.

Congratulations are due. The InterBoard Poetry Community's Poem of the Year results are in, and one forum, Desert Moon Review, out of more than twenty, has swept all three places. National Book Award winner Xeufei Jin, or Ha Jin, who was blind to the poets and the forums the poems came from, both judged and commented on the winning poems. In first place, is S. Thomas Summers' "A Fall from Grace". Then Laurie Byro has two of her poems, "Living in the Body of a Firefly" and "Virginia Sings Back To the Stones In Her Pockets", in second and third. Thank you, Xeufei Jin.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

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Rus Bowden · at 7:02 PM

"the very best", and said that she hoped the person to take the role would be a woman. Padel was the first woman to hold the 300-year-old post but was only in position for nine days before what she described as "divided opinion" in the university forced her to resign.

Padel also took the opportunity to apologise to [Derek] Walcott "for anything I have done which can be misconstrued as being against him". "He's my senior colleague and I revere his work. When I first heard he'd pulled out I felt scooped out inside."

from The Guardian: Padel admits 'silly' error in Oxford poetry election
also The London Evening Standard: Revealed: Ruth Padel's email that smeared her Nobel rival
also BBC News: Oxford poet 'sorry' over vote row
also Times Online: Derek Walcott: I won't run for Oxford poetry post again
also George Szirtes: Totleigh 1: a shout for Mehrotra
also The Guardian: Professor of poetry, part three?

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Rus Bowden · at 6:56 PM

Hay Festival

from The Guardian: Guardian Hay Festival

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Rus Bowden · at 6:56 PM

today said he would like to be Oxford professor of poetry amid the furore surrounding Ruth Padel's appointment to the post.

In an interview with the Guardian, James said the position, which dates back to 1708, and whose past occupants include WH Auden and Seamus Heaney, was his "dream job".

from The Guardian: Clive James eyes Oxford poetry top job
also The Guardian: Clive James: 'I would have been an obvious first choice for cocaine death. I could use up a lifetime's supply of anything in two weeks'
also The Guardian: Clive James on Derek Walcott

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Rus Bowden · at 6:55 PM

in her notes, "believes she can do no wrong, only that wrong is done to her." That attitude contributes to the cruelty and hardships described throughout the section. In the second poem, "Playground," Hughes recounts a childhood experience where a "small girl" and a group of boys taunted and teased "a big girl,"

Filling up the big girl's head

from Christian Science Monitor: Stonepicker and The Book of Mirrors

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Rus Bowden · at 6:54 PM

are natural partners, and can work well together, as at the close of "A Goodnight Kiss", where "kiss-kiss is the sound of her black sandals/making peace with the earth then taking leave of it". Best of all, arguably, is the poem "Diagnosis", where long summer daylight over Scapa Flow brings together unsleeping gulls and an insomniac speaker, who must "keep watching waves/slosh to and fro over the dead ships", but who is actually seeing more than might be apparent:

they cannot see you as I do, alive
in your illness and walking on the water,
but disappearing whenever the light shifts
and the sea beneath reveals itself again.

from The Times Literary Supplement: Andrew Motion's poetic pains

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Rus Bowden · at 6:54 PM

into mainstream publishing. A Dance of the Forests and The Lion and the Jewel were published by Oxford University Press. Soyinka's poems were well represented in the Anthology of Modern Poetry from Africa edited by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier and published by Penguin.

Soyinka felt that his theatre group The 1960 Masks was not professional enough to drive his drama revolution. He therefore formed the Orisun Theatre drama group in 1964. His highly-charged one-act play The Strong Breed was adapted and filmed in Nigeria for American television by Esso World Theatre. To round off the year, The Strong Breed and The Trials of Brother Jero were produced at Greenwich Mews Theatre, New York. A collection of his plays, Five Plays, was published by Oxford University Press.

By 1965 the crisis in the Western region was getting to boiling point, and Soyinka stood up to be counted.

from Burningpot Nigeria: The Essential Soyinka

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Rus Bowden · at 6:50 PM

and uncomplaining, turned out some of the finest verse he has ever written. As it was a commentary, it had, of course, to fit the picture, so he would bring sections to us as he wrote them. When it did not fit, we just said so, and it was crumpled up and thrown into the waste-paper basket! Some beautiful lines and stanzas went into oblivion in this casual, ruthless way. Auden just shrugged, and wrote more.

from The Times Literary Supplement: Comrade Auden

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Rus Bowden · at 6:50 PM

were granted free land because, in the words of John A. Macdonald, the then prime minister of Canada, "A sprinkling of Jews in the North West would do much good. They would at once go in for peddling and politics. . . ." But more than affording the opportunity to peddle and politic, this resettlement allowed the Jewish pioneers to escape the harsh persecutions of their native lands, which Milman's poems powerfully evoke.

Among the most striking works in the book is "A Few Restrictions Regarding the Jews of Romania, 1885-1900":

a restriction forbidding Jews to be peddlers
a restriction forbidding Jews to be shopkeepers
a restriction forbidding Jews to be craftsmen

from The Jewish Daily Forward: Northern Commemoration

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Rus Bowden · at 6:49 PM

by Adrienne Rich

from The Nation: Quarto

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Rus Bowden · at 6:49 PM

so have communications, but a BBC team is hoping to revive the British tradition of war poetry by taking one of the country's leading poets to Afghanistan.

The programme-makers plan to film Simon Armitage's response to frontline operations around Helmand province. While a handful of visual artists have worked in the theatre of war since fighting began in October 2001, Armitage will be the first poet to be granted access.

The Yorkshire writer, who was heavily tipped for the post of poet laureate that went to Carol Ann Duffy this month, already has an impressive track record of work reflecting the impact of war.

from The Guardian: BBC plans to send poet to Afghanistan battlefields

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Rus Bowden · at 6:47 PM

just as Gawain wore the gift of the temptress's green girdle to ward off death, and I feel a bit like Miss Ireland circa 1976.

Despite which, by the time I'm required to look directly into the camera and articulate a meaningful summary of the journey, I feel a strong sense of understanding and affinity. In our youth, we make bold statements of intent and set out into the unknown with every intention of fulfilling our potential and achieving our dreams. Among many other things, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is that old, old story, the journey of life, and the trials we must suffer if we are to keep our promises to the world and to ourselves.

With its deft counterpointing of polite, courtly etiquette and nature red in tooth and claw, it is also a poem that balances the humans we have become with the animals we once were. I returned home a bedraggled but wiser creature.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

from The Sunday Times: Poet on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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Rus Bowden · at 6:30 PM

Look how well everything worked out between us in the 1980s--you know, the last time America ventured out into the wilds of Afghanistan to fight the bad guys. Things went just swell when you, Congress, funneled millions of dollars through our army and intelligence services, the ISI. You remember the ISI, right? Big fellows? Very powerful thanks to all that clout you gave them when you put them between millions of dollars and the original Afghan Mujahideen, who coincidentally turned out to be the first set of Taliban to terrorize South Asia?

from Fatima Bhutto: The Daily Beast: Stop Spoiling My Country

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Rus Bowden · at 6:29 PM

and loons are hanging around boldly for a while, before the boats start up for the season and drive the loons, at least, farther away.

There's a splendid new book, "The Poets Guide to the Birds," edited by Judith Kitchen and Ted Kooser, full of poems with birds in them.

Here's a short poem from that book:

[by Nancy Geyer]

A Night With No Moon

from Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record-Eagle: On poetry: Birds, poems and koans

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Rus Bowden · at 6:28 PM

"The papers today quote from email in which I passed on, in good faith, the concerns of a student who believed a professor's relations with women students were relevant to her university's appointment of a professor," she said. "Far from wishing anonymity, she wanted her concerns to be heard. The details I passed on were in the public domain and were a source of genuine unease to her, and I communicated them to two journalists who had asked to be kept informed, because her concern seemed part of the whole picture.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Poetry professor Ruth Padel defends herself over smear campaign claims

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Speaking at the Guardian Hay festival, [A.C.] Grayling said he was "deeply disappointed" to hear of Padel's involvement: "I think she should step down, and if she doesn't--and it looks as though she's keen to stay on--Oxford should look into it."

[Clive] James added that "the whole fracas has made Ruth Padel's position unbearable". "She would be wise to recuse herself and ask for the whole thing to begin again. Derek Walcott is unlikely to be a menace to young women at the age of 75, but he would have delivered an extremely good series of lectures."

Calling for Padel's resignation, [Lord] Bragg described her actions as "disgraceful". He was joined by the former Channel 4 chief executive Sir Jeremy Isaacs. Both had supported her election.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Ruth Padel fights to keep Oxford post over tip-offs about her rival

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Rus Bowden · at 6:27 PM

[Ruth] Padel, the individual solely responsible for the egregious fiasco that lead to Walcott's forced-by-her withdrawal, wants everyone to play nicey-nice: "I knew nothing of any anonymous mailings and would not have wished John Walsh's article to be published. I was contacted by an Oxford student, who believed Mr. Walcott's relations with female students at universities was relevant to her university's election of a professor. . . . Because her concern seemed to be a part of the whole picture, I communicated it to two journalists. I would not have done so had I known of the anonymous mailing, or of any journalist intending to highlight this issue on its own . . . It would be so much less wounding to everyone concerned, it needs to rest . . . if you can find it in your heart."

Heart? Huh? What's good for the cooked goose . . .

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Ruth Padel's ruinous route to notoriety

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Rus Bowden · at 6:26 PM

you are a fool/for having come this far." This assertion indicates that the ocean-swimmer has swum out too far, which becomes a symbol for other foolhardy endeavors the person might choose, for example, mountain climbing, auto-racing, or even travelling to foreign nations where one might encounter irreconcilable customs.

The lines, "You know you could never/swim fast enough," works for both parts of the metaphor. If a sea creature is coming after the ocean-swimmer, he might not be able to outpace it, and in life, if one bite's off more than one can chew, one might find it difficult to swallow.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Connelly's The Story

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The highly effective strategy of this poem is the use of the dog's conversation to represent the man's baser instincts and physical body. The man remains silent, never speaking, but his thoughts are revealed by the speaker of the poem and the dog. While the dog wants to "get crazy drunk," the man "is struck/by the oppressiveness of his past."

The man's "memories" have become as settled in his mind as he is settled in a neighborhood with a wife and a dog, and he thinks he can see "faces/caught up among the dark places in the trees." While the man is musing about solidified memories, the dog animalistically interjects, "Let's pick up some girls and just/rip off their clothes. Let's dig holes everywhere."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dobyns' How to Like It

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He then conjectures that if his eyes are seeing correctly, then his discernment is gone, leaving him unable to distinguish right from wrong, error from accuracy, moral from immoral. In sonnet 141, he blames his lack of discrimination on his "heart," while in sonnet 148, he simply condemns his ability to think clearly.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 148

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The speaker has repeatedly groaned and complained that he treats the woman better than he treats himself. He swallows his pride and gives over his own thoughts and feelings to a woman who snubs him and abuses him and then has the audacity to insist that he does not really love her.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 149

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While the reader of this poem cannot know if [William Carlos] Williams intended to elicit the mystique of the Marxian class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, that is exactly what happens when the reader encounters the term "proletarian."

As a member of the "bourgeoisie," Williams offers what he thinks to be a sympathetic look at the young woman's plight.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: William's Proletarian Portrait

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In Paramahansa Yogananda's "The Royal Way," from Songs of the Soul, the great yogi speaks from the point of view of an unrealized devotee who says, "I walk and wonder/In truth or blunder," and "Conundrum enclosed, bewildered am I--/As baffling mazes do they lie." He speaks as one of befuddled humanity who finds the contradictions or pairs of opposites of the world confusing.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's The Royal Way

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Rus Bowden · at 6:26 PM

by Dan Albergotti

Greek olives in oil, fine beer, the respect of colleagues,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Among the Things He Does Not Deserve by Dan Albergotti

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Driving West in 1970
by Robert Bly

My dear children, do you remember the morning

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Driving West in 1970 by Robert Bly

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Durum wheat
by Lisa Martin-Demoor

Memory at its finest lacks corroboration

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Durum wheat by Lisa Martin-Demoor

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Happily Planting the Beans too Early
by Jack Gilbert

I waited until the sun was going down

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Happily Planting the Beans too Early by Jack Gilbert

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The Perfect Black Blazer
by Bobbi Lurie

The head nurse called to say

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Perfect Black Blazer by Bobbi Lurie

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Rock Tea
by Gary Gildner

At a hot springs in Sawtooth Mountains

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Rock Tea by Gary Gildner

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Spruce Street, Berkeley
by Naomi Shihab Nye

If a street is named for a tree,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Spruce Street, Berkeley by Naomi Shihab Nye

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Rus Bowden · at 6:25 PM

about the passage of time, and the inevitability of change, and how these affect us. Here is a poem by Kevin Griffith, who lives in Ohio, in which the years accelerate by their passing.

Spinning

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 217

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Rus Bowden · at 6:24 PM

one of poetry's few truly scary characters. This is a reputation of which he's plainly aware and by which he's obviously amused, at least to judge from the nervy title of his 2006 book, "Ooga-Booga." This perception also colors the praise his collections typically receive--to pick one example from many, Calvin Bedient admiringly describes him as "the most frightening American poet ever," which is a bit like calling someone "history's most bloodthirsty clockmaker." What is it about Seidel that bothers and excites everyone so much?

from David Orr: The New York Times: The Edge of Night

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Rus Bowden · at 6:23 PM

Indeed, when Ed married in 1957, Frost served as his best man.

He met the poet while an undergraduate at Dartmouth, and Frost quickly adopted him as one of his so-called "boys"--that was the term Frost used for the young men who became his protégées.

But Ed Lathem was more than this, over time. Indeed, he published a formidable edition of the complete poems of Robert Frost in 1969--a book that's familiar to a generation or more of grateful readers.

In all, Ed Lathem published some thirty books, and he wrote many articles, including several about his closest friend and college roommate, Theodore Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss.

And yet this only begins to explain Ed Lathem.

from Jay Parini: Remembering Ed Lathem

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Rus Bowden · at 6:23 PM

its traditional title, "On the Cards and Dice," provides a riddle-spoiler right from the outset. That giving-away of the game seems to assume that the poem works beyond its game-playing. Does it, despite its self-parody of mysterioso rhetoric, somehow elevate banal games of chance like cards and dice? The poem as a whole is, after all, itself a kind of game. Or does this piece of writing simply debunk the tone and language of prophecy, mocking the manners of mystery?

"On the Cards and Dice"

from Robert Pinsky: Two Riddles

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Rus Bowden · at 6:22 PM

Whatever is or is not happening in the poem, sexual anxiety is present, signalled most obviously in the repetition of the suffix "-less".

The poem's most memorable image is "those Babies in your eyes"--an endearing picture of merry innocence, complicated by the notion that the speaker might also be seeing his own reflection(s). Possibly, of course, an (unshared?) desire for babies might also be suggested. The poem perhaps never achieves anything quite so hauntingly expressive again. But it is surely redeemed because of that achievement.

[by Robert Herrick]

To his Mistress, Objecting to him neither Toying or Talking

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week

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Rus Bowden · at 6:21 PM

who says that the above poem fully brings out the pure joys of innocent childhood. Let me quote her own words here: "Emily Dickinson's speaker remains somewhat hazy about what that special light looks like, but she has made it abundantly clear how it makes her feel, and that aspect of the poem endears it to children. The experience of this light affects her so deeply that she cannot describe its physical appearance but only the strange influence it exerts upon her mind and heart." The mystery of Emily Dickinson's spirituality is not the way she lived but the way she wrote. She had contempt for public notice.

from V Sundaram: News Today: Baritone: Spirituality in poetry

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Rus Bowden · at 6:21 PM

it has to do with the line between public and private art, between what writers (or singers) create for public consumption and what they create for themselves. In much the way Bob Dylan did with "The Basement Tapes," [Clinton] Heylin argues, Shakespeare used the sonnets to try new things, including writing in a nakedly autobiographical voice. Would he have been so daring if he had been writing for an audience? Would he have felt so free?

from David L. Ulin: Los Angeles Times: Jacket Copy: Shakespeare: the immortal bard(s)?

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Rus Bowden · at 6:20 PM

[Alexander] King told a story about [Peter] Altenberg that I have never forgotten. It seems that Altenberg, who lived out his days in cheap hotels, awoke one morning feeling poorly--probably hung over from a combination of slivovitz and sleeping pills--and decided to spend the day in bed. But just as he was about to fall back to sleep, he remembered it was the birthday of a woman he loved very much. So he dragged himself out of bed, went to the florist, and bought a bouquet.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Better a well-turned epigram than an empty epic

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Rus Bowden · at 6:19 PM

for Leela and Arjun
By Robert Bohm

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Corseri and Bohm

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Rus Bowden · at 6:19 PM

I always wake up

from Express-News: Poetry: 'Same Time'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:18 PM

was "Nature," a collection of essays published in 1836 that inspired the entire movement known as transcendentalism. According to Jone Johnson Lewis on the Transcendentalists Web site, transcendentalism attempted to "define spirituality and religion . . . in a way that took into account the new understandings their age made available." In the book, Emerson sought to change America's interpretation of and relationship with nature. The book helped to establish Emerson as one of the originators of an American style and tradition of writing.

from findingDulcinea: Happy Birthday: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Father of Transcendentalism

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Rus Bowden · at 6:18 PM

by C.L. Dallat

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: The Year of Not Dancing by C.L. Dallat

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Rus Bowden · at 6:15 PM

by Geoffrey Lehmann

from The New Yorker: Poetry: The Animals

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My Hero
by Jennifer Michael Hecht

from The New Yorker: Poetry: My Hero

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Rus Bowden · at 6:14 PM

)))) Listen

White Song

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'White Song'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:13 PM

as she wrote more freely in the 1960s and 70s; she grew less willing to obscure images with metaphysics. But her gift for animating metaphor with sudden drama (very much the Coleridgian tactic) shines through these few balladic stanzas whose desolating last line curls and repeats with a wave-like inevitability.

The Other Mariners

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: The Other Mariners

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Rus Bowden · at 6:11 PM

and associative logic contribute just as much to the texture of everyday communication as they do to making up postmodern literature and "Simpsons" episodes and Mitsubishi commercials. As negotiators of symbols, we are now comfortable with multiplicity and simultaneity, and our natural state seems to have become some play between the surface of language and the depths of meaning. Likewise, naked sentiment is often authenticated by a radical juxtaposition with ironic statement.

from The Washington Post: Poet's Choice: 'In an Adirondack With You' by Paul Otremba

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Rus Bowden · at 6:09 PM

Sailor at Nostrand and Bedford

I.

If you think that what I want

from Zeek: Poem: Sailor at Nostrand and Bedford

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Rus Bowden · at 6:08 PM

for Assistant Librarian magazine.

Before Ghana, he made an unsuccessful attempt to set up a library school in Trinidad. He published Bibliography and the Provision of Books in 1963, and from 1967 to 1972 he was at the College of Librarianship Wales in Aberystwyth, and took an MA from University College London. He then went to Nigeria, remaining there until 1986.

In 1980, with Philip Larkin, he became an honorary fellow of the Library Association. Like the poet, Ronald had a keen eye for folly, and also wrote prose and verse.

from The Guardian: Ronald Benge

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Rus Bowden · at 6:08 PM

of the Farmville Downtown Merchants Association and the Farmville Exchange Club, also wrote poetry and collected clocks.

from Richmond Times-Dispatch: Thomas Cumbey, jeweler, dies at 77

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Rus Bowden · at 6:07 PM

could also be seen throughout the service. As a student, she read the works of such writers as Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda with zeal, and had been planning to write her senior thesis on the Spanish poets of Lorca's generation. In addition to the re-printing of "Poem 20" from Neruda's "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" within the program, several of the evening's speakers remarked upon or read poetic works in Justin-Jinich's honor: from lines written by Neruda and Lorca to an untitled and anonymously-written work spoken by Seth Halpern '09 to a bilingual poem--entitled simply "Para You"--written and recited by Findlay Walsh '11.

from The Wesleyan Argus: Remembering Johanna Justin-Jinich '10

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Rus Bowden · at 6:06 PM

and poems as well as seven books, including her autobiography, Freedom for Me and Other Human Creatures. An authority on C.S. Lewis, she published C.S. Lewis: Speaker & Teacher in 1971. It was reissued twice. She also co-wrote Introduction to Debate and the Complete Book of Speechwriting for Students and Professionals.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Carolyn Berglund Keefe, professor, poet

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Rus Bowden · at 6:04 PM

with him [James Kirkup] since the 70s when he submitted poetry to me. The Guitar-Player of Zuiganji was first published in Headland #8.

I had previously published in a limited edition his "Many-Lined Poem", one or two extant copies of which I have buried in a box somewhere. He was still sending me work from Andorra as recently as a couple of years ago.

from Ackworth born, gone West: James Kirkup (1918-2009)

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Rus Bowden · at 6:03 PM

miniature golf and going on trips with her family. She had many hobbies, writing short stories and poems, photography, scrap booking and making original crafts. She also collected U.S. and foreign coins and stamps and loved to play cards with her friends and grandchildren.

from The Post-Crescent: Lathrop, Bette I.

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Rus Bowden · at 6:02 PM

as an assistant professor of English at the University of Richmond. Simultaneously he was book editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In the 1950s Mr. Maner joined Virginia Electric & Power Company (now Dominion Resources), holding a number of executive posts before retiring in 1982 as a district manager based in Williamsburg.

Beginning In the 1940s and continuing through the 1970s, Mr. Maner wrote fiction and poetry for The New Yorker, Colliers, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and McCall's, as well as for magazines in Australia and Great Britain. He published five mystery novels in the U.S. and Europe.

from The Virginia Gazette: Bill Maner, civic activist, dies

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Rus Bowden · at 6:01 PM

English philosopher Francis Bacon was praised in the British Times Literary Supplement as "the best single-volume study available."

Dr. Zagorin also wrote about poet John Milton and the development of the idea of religious tolerance in Europe. In 2005, he published a book for general readers about the Greek historian Thucydides. His final book, "Hobbes and the Law of Nature," to be published later this year, examines the moral and political thought of 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes.

from The Washington Post: Historian Was Expert On English Revolution

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