Poetry & Poets in Rags

Two men's names recur in the news this week, both are poets and activists: Dennis Brutus, who has died, and Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to eleven years in jail. You will find news and poetry of Dennis Brutus in the Great Regulars section, from Hillel Italie, E. Ethelbert Miller, and PBS Newshour, and in our Poetic Obituaries. Links to news on Liu Xiaobo's situation are in our News at Eleven section, and in Great Regulars from the Dalai Lama and Luisetta Mudie.

We begin with Willis Barnstone, linking to both an article on his translation of the Bible, and an interview with him. This leads off a very big week in poetry news. So I'd best let you get to reading.

Happy New Year! And thanks for clicking in in 2009.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

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Rus Bowden · at 1:57 PM

of the purported authors of the familiar gospel stories. Matthew becomes Mattityahu. Mark morphs into Markos, Luke is Loukas. John appears as Yohanan. John the Baptist is renamed Yohanan the Dipper.

[Willis] Barnstone adds three other versions of the story, the recently discovered Gnostic gospels of Toma (Thomas), Yehuda (Judas) and Miryam of Magdala (Mary Magdalene), and argues in his commentary that they are at least as important and potentially accurate depictions as the canonical accounts that made it past the theological censors and into that ancient anthology we call the Bible.

The next thing you notice about the Barnstone Bible is the poetry, which is this translator's real passion.

from San Francisco Chronicle: Writer seeks to restore Bible's Jewish roots
also Bowdoin Magazine: Interview: Willis Barnstone '48

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Rus Bowden · at 1:56 PM

gets the artist into trouble. How do you move from figures of speech back to the concrete practices of the Jewish world without being conned by the images you have created? [Stanley] Moss suggests that we imitate the ancient Jewish stonemasons who would willfully mar their work in some way. In Moss's case, this means that the writer of "Bad Joke" has to turn his anger into vaudeville by showing how limited his poetic means truly are.

from Tablet: The Joke's on God

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Rus Bowden · at 1:55 PM

God loves a people and they love him. Rumi in fact alludes to a famous tradition--"I was a hidden treasure and desired to be known, so I created the creation to be known"--explaining love as the underlying motivation for God's creation:

Were it not for the ocean of pure love
What reason would I have to forge the heavens?
Masnavi 5: 2739

Rumi even seems to posit love as the primal element of creation, a vital force that stirs the universe and creates the noosphere (to borrow a term from Teilhard de Chardin):

from The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 5: On love
also The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 4: Rumi's Sufism
also The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 3: Knowledge and certainty
also The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 2: Under the surface
also The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 1: World figure or new age fad?

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Rus Bowden · at 1:55 PM

It is not possible to stop the ever-flowing stream of life forcefully. You can channel it with craft and wisdom but you cannot stop it by erecting walls in its way," he [Abdurrahman Roghani] says, referring to the acts of militants who banned all artistic expression and destroyed hundreds of shops selling music in the valley.

"[The] human heart can only be dominated by love and affection, not weapons and war."

from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: The Poet The Taliban Couldn't Keep Down

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Rus Bowden · at 1:54 PM

pursuing political reforms, a Chinese court on Friday sentenced one of the country's best-known dissidents to 11 years in prison for subversion.

Liu Xiaobo, 53, a former literature professor and a dogged critic of China's single-party political system, was detained in December 2008 after he helped draft a petition known as Charter 08 that demanded the right to free speech, open elections and the rule of law.

from The New York Times: Leading China Dissident Gets 11-Year Term for Subversion
also Reporters Without Borders: Eleven-year jail sentence for free speech activist Liu Xiaobo, court sneakily issues verdict on Christmas Day
also Reporters Without Borders: Charter 08: Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link (pdf)

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Rus Bowden · at 1:54 PM

a feeling I've never gotten in New York--the historical echo of the spaces downtown, the feeling that everyone who has ever worked here is still here. There's a profoundly good feeling of being connected with the generations."

[Reginald] Gibbons' poems are both precise descriptions of the physical landscape and vivid dispatches from an emotional response to it all. "I try to pay attention to the whole web of the concrete world and the human world," he says.

from Chicago Tribune: Chicago fuels work of poet

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Rus Bowden · at 1:53 PM

second collection of poems (and her first in close to 30 years), is a book consumed not so much with mortality as with transience, of which mortality is one aspect. Another is the way our most casual choices come to define us, a process Pollitt likes to enact by letting casual-seeming analogies take over whole poems. "Death can't help but look friendly/when all your friends live there," she writes in "Old," "while more and more/each day's like a smoky party/where the music hurts and strangers insist that they know you."

from The New York Times: Poetry Chronicle
also Winnipeg Free Press: Poetry: Subject, language meld into poetic voice

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Rus Bowden · at 1:52 PM

a diabetic alcoholic, in the hospital after surgical amputation of half of one foot and three toes of the other. "There was no privacy, not even a thin curtain," he writes. "I guessed it made it easier for the nurses to monitor the postsurgical patients, but still, my father was exposed--his decades of poor health and worse decisions illuminated--on white sheets in a white hallway under white lights." It's a devastating image, one that resonates ("Valediction") with the burning light his father sees, on his deathbed, as "God passing judgment on Earth."

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Finding the father within

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Rus Bowden · at 1:52 PM

By Grace Cockburn

from The Victoria Times Colonist: Poetry to warm the wintry soul (Grace Cockburn)
also The Victoria Times Colonist: Ritual for the Winter Solstice (Cynthia Woodman Kerkham)
also The Victoria Times Colonist: Poetry to warm the wintry soul (Cynthia Woodman Kerkham)
also The Victoria Times Colonist: Solace for the solstice: Poetry series begins (Mike Bond)

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Rus Bowden · at 1:51 PM

South of Hebron

Across the onion fields, a hulk of rusted metal groans,

from Foreign Policy in Focus: Two Poems

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Rus Bowden · at 1:49 PM

It's much smaller of course, smaller territory than South Africa, and somehow one has a feeling that the hostility, the animosity is much closer. People are literally in each others face. And the hatred I felt was much deeper than was in South Africa. South Africa one had a sense that there was a way out. In the case of Palestine/Israel, maybe because it's so hugely contested internationally, maybe because of the backing of the Western world, America particularly for Israel, it seems to be so much more hopeless.

from France24: Breyten Breytenbach: the greatest Afrikaner poet of his generation!

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Rus Bowden · at 1:23 PM

rather than just any old junk, everything has to be approved by [Michael] Landy himself. If he likes it, it goes in. He only wants to destroy good stuff. This seems to be a matter of pride.

"I suddenly got protective about the bin, and I thought, 'I don't want just anything to go in.' So there's this completely subjective thing that only things I like will go in. There's not hard and fast rules, to be honest. Erm, hmmm, yeah."

So what, you might ask, is this Landy thing all about?

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: Art Bin: It's official, modern art is rubbish

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The decade now ends with the threatening shadows still in the caves and the whole thing bookended by another recession caused by unreal money. The banks were worth trillions and then they weren't. The enemy was invisible and money unreal. In the Noughties, all that was solid melted into air, into thin air.

No wonder we felt insecure. Shadows wanted us to die, and we might at any moment be broke. In fact, if you want the word of the decade, here it is: "security".

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: 9/11: When all that was solid melted into the air
also Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: Top scientists share their future predictions

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Rus Bowden · at 1:23 PM

is a product of its time and place and also fair to say, as [Billy] Collins does, that [Richard] "Brautigan's best book is a contribution to the fishing literature of Hemingway and Izaak Walton, and the theme of trout fishing allows him to conduct a wandering investigation of the many creeks that are tributaries to the troubled and fascinating waters of American history and mythology."

from Jeff Baker: The Oregonian: New edition of 'Trout Fishing in America'

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Rus Bowden · at 1:22 PM

The poem becomes a symbolic vessel for imagination and metaphor. In cultural and civic life, a poet's role is to bring a reflective prowess and moral persuasion to public discourse--to embody the poet's ancient burden to speak to the tribe and represent the tribe.

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: Q&A

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Rus Bowden · at 1:22 PM

The bathroom was for, well, using the bathroom. Dinnertime was about sharing a meal with friends or family, and mornings were about waking up. Most radically, home was simply home. Work may have been on our minds, but it wasn't in our hands (or pockets).

But now, thanks to the BlackBerry (and the iPhone, and the Treo, and all the other hand-held e-mail devices), we are always connected.

from John Freeman: The Washington Post: The Worst Ideas of the Decade: The BlackBerry

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Rus Bowden · at 1:20 PM

of Spoon River," Harry reminds the town's residents that they "never marveled," that the drunkard Chase Henry "voted to shut down the saloons." It might seem odd that a drunkard would vote for Prohibition, but the saloons had stopped giving Chase credit; thus, he could no longer get drunk anyway and thus got revenge by helping to shut down the taverns.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Masters' Harry Carey Goodhue

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Rus Bowden · at 1:20 PM

a well-known Chinese writer, to an 11-year jail term.

By sentencing Liu Xiaobo and others like him, who use freedom of expression to publicly articulate their opinions, the Chinese authorities have not only violated the binding principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the freedom of expression mentioned in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China.

I urge the Chinese Government to release, as soon as possible, Liu Xiaobo and other political prisoners who were jailed for exercising their freedom of expression.

I offer my regards and prayers to Mr. Liu Xiaobo, his wife and other family members.

The Dalai Lama

December 28, 2009

from Tenzin Gyatso: The Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama: Message

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Rus Bowden · at 1:19 PM

than a dozen collections of poetry, including "A Simple Lust," "Stubborn Hope" and "Salutes and Censures." In 2006, Haymarket published a compilation of his work, "Poetry and Protest." His work was banned for years in South Africa, but one book, "Thoughts Abroad," slipped through; it was published in 1970 under the pseudonym John Bruin.

He received numerous honorary prizes, including a lifetime achievement award from South Africa's Department of Arts and Culture.

from Hillel Italie: The Canadian Press: Poet, anti-apartheid activist Dennis Brutus dies at 85

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Rus Bowden · at 1:19 PM

was a fit enough theological ninja to convert me. He'd met my doubts with his trademark delight and none of the stern piety my lapsed Catholic friends often railed against from pre-Vatican II catechisms. He'd never betrayed his vow of obedience, though. "I don't believe the pope is the ultimate religious authority," I'd said. "Maybe you will some day," he'd said. "I think women should be priests," I'd said. "I'm sure the Holy Father prays about that a lot," he'd said.

from Mary Karr: The New York Times: The End

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Rus Bowden · at 1:18 PM

by Gerald Locklin

Most of my students here are very poor.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: At the University College of North Wales at Bangor by Gerald Locklin

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The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog
by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

To be blessed

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

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December
by Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: December by Gary Johnson

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Green Tea
by Dale Ritterbusch

There is this tea

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Green Tea by Dale Ritterbusch

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Herons in Winter in the Frozen Marsh
by Mary Oliver

All winter

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Herons in Winter in the Frozen Marsh by Mary Oliver

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O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again
by James Laughlin

How she let her long hair down over her shoulders, making a

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again by James Laughlin

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Table Grace
by Gary Johnson

Here we sit as evening falls

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Table Grace by Gary Johnson

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Rus Bowden · at 1:17 PM

of watching choruses of young people sing. It's an experience rich with affirmation, it seems to me. Here is a lovely poem by Tim Nolan, an attorney in Minneapolis.

At the Choral Concert

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 248

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Rus Bowden · at 1:17 PM

Alfred Tennyson, George B. Shaw, Marianne Moore and Robert Graves, for example, all met their end "ripe with time and full of years." Among contemporary poets, Adrienne Rich, Maya Angelou, and Richard Wilbur are writing and publishing into their 80s.

But perhaps the poet who best epitomizes this phenomenon of longevity is Stanley Kunitz, who had a long and illustrious career and was considered by many to be the most distinguished American poet at the time of his death in 2006 at the age of 100.

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: On Poetry: Some poets continue writing well into late years of life

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Rus Bowden · at 1:14 PM

What happens when we peek around the corner and try to see ahead or guess what's coming? I want to walk into 2010 with a degree of optimism and hope. I would even like to strut into happiness. I don't want two major wars in the world to become three. I don't want Katrina to introduce me to her sister or girlfriend and hit a city with another disaster.

from E. Ethelbert Miller: NPR: How Will We Refer To The Next Ten Years?

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[by E. Ethelbert Miller]

Putting the Pillows to Sleep

She went home to another man.

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-notes: Putting the Pillows to Sleep

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E.M.: Tell us something about your life as a political figure and also as an artist.

D.B.: Well, I grew up as most blacks do, in a ghetto, in South Africa. My education was a missionary education by nuns who came from Ireland, Scotland, England or elsewhere. In some ways that was, of course, an advantage because the missionary approach, I believe, was a less racist one than that of the white administration of the State.

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-notes: The South African poet Dennis Brutus died Saturday in Capetown.

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Rus Bowden · at 1:13 PM

to register a top-level Chinese-language domain has to apply to a government bureau and produce a whole series of documents. In reality, this rule has taken away the right of Chinese citizens to set up their own Web sites."

"In other words, only companies and government agencies will be able to do so in future. Ordinary citizens will no longer have the right to do so." [--Liu Feiyue]

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Anger at New Web Rules

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Liu [Xiaobo], who has been held in formal detention for more than a year already, was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights.

"The mistake of authoritarianism is to believe that you can forbid freedom," tweeted online rights activist and Olympic stadium designer Ai Weiwei.

"That's a mistake. As soon as you deny freedom, it takes flight, and comes to settle in every window."

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Dissident Gets 11 Years

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Rus Bowden · at 1:05 PM

was more optimistic. Commentators who consider the thrush to represent the poet himself surely have a good point. He was frail and bird-like in appearance, and he had discovered an abundant poetic inspiration towards the end of his life that must have seemed at times miraculously "illimited".

Let the poet-thrush's "happy good night air" sing us out of 2009, with all my thanks and good wishes to friends old and new, on (and behind the scenes of), Poem of the Week.

The Darkling Thrush

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: The Darkling Thrush, by Thomas Hardy

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Rus Bowden · at 1:04 PM

They were listened to long before they ever could be read. That a sound made with lips and tongue and voice could become associated with something encountered in the world--a tree, the sky, another person--surely is a kind of miracle. "In the beginning was the word" certainly applies to the world we inhabit.

I wonder if we do not do our children a disservice by teaching them to read too soon.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: The language of enchantment

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Rus Bowden · at 1:02 PM

by Gina Myers

after Marina Tsvetaeva

The wounded in winter imagine the spring.

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Four Poems by Gina Myers

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Rus Bowden · at 12:57 PM

was the most brilliant and celebrated Iranian poet of the 19th century, known for his melodious verses. His famous elegy (above) is the most popular tribute to Imam Hussein (AS) written by an Iranian poet. This famous elegy is inscribed on the walls of the holy shrine of Imam Ali Reza (AS) in Mashhad in Iran. Although considered to be the last of the classical poets, Qa'ani, in this tribute, breaks with the tradition of explanatory poetry and pays his tribute to the beloved Imam in the form of question and answer or a dialogue.

from Daily Times: Purple Patch: Qa'ani's elegy and Imam Hussein (AS) --Ammar Ali Qureshi

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Rus Bowden · at 12:57 PM

by Yang Li translated from the Chinese by Steve Bradbury, December 2009

from Guernica: Poetry: Albania

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Rus Bowden · at 12:56 PM

December 27, 2009

Holiday words:

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase: 'Holiday Poem, 2009'

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Rus Bowden · at 12:45 PM

by Rachel Hadas

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Only So Much

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The Things
by Donald Hall

from The New Yorker: Poetry: The Things

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Rus Bowden · at 12:44 PM

"Winter Piece"

Crisp ermine tracks

from The Oregonian: Poetry: 'Winter Piece'

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Rus Bowden · at 12:43 PM

Can the heart compute desire's trajectory

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Longing'

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Rus Bowden · at 12:43 PM

For Mom

Mary takes babe

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: For Mom

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Rus Bowden · at 12:42 PM

is uprooted and disregarded, and as our suppositions are rendered inadequate, we allow [Christian] Bok to bask in a retelling of perhaps the most celebrated story of all time--a daring move for both him and us.

Moreover, if you haven't noticed, the quotations above are restrained from using any other vowel but E. The project behind Eunoia is simple: Each of the five main prose poems is restricted to one and only one of the five vowels of the English language.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Less Is More

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Rus Bowden · at 12:42 PM

There is poetry in baseball when

from San Antonio Express-News: Poetry: 'Poetry and Golf'

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Rus Bowden · at 12:41 PM

gravestone epitaph
By Henri Cole

from Slate: "Asleep in Jesus at Rest" --By Henri Cole

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Rus Bowden · at 12:38 PM

of Wallace Stevens's "Domination of Black". It resonates among the Suffolk stones as a reminder of those disquieting phenomena, often lurking within the beautiful, that are troubling to our sense of self, "poisonous as Ariel/to Prospero's own knowledge", but that cannot be ignored.

[by Geoffrey Hill]

The Peacock at Alderton

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: The Peacock at Alderton by Geoffrey Hill

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Rus Bowden · at 12:37 PM

Off a Side Road Near Staunton

from The Washington Post: Poet's Choice: 'Off a Side Road Near Staunton' by Stanley Plumly

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Rus Bowden · at 12:37 PM

Her dark eyes spoke sweet rhetoric.

from Zeek: Poetry: Amidst Oranges

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Rus Bowden · at 12:35 PM

been living in Penticton intermittently for about four years, in between travelling and visiting friends and family all over the country. [Kris] Walterson said he was an amazing poet and writer.

from Penticton Western News: Murder victim promised to take family portrait

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Rus Bowden · at 12:33 PM

was "certainly a big loss to the Kannada literary and musical world. It was only through C. Ashwath's magical music that many great poems written by renowned Kannada poets became popular. His death will create a big void in Kannada music."

from Rediff.com: Kannada composer C. Ashwath dies

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Rus Bowden · at 12:33 PM

who was imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela in South Africa, died at his home in Cape Town this morning after battling prostate cancer. He was 85.

Mr. Brutus was exiled from his native South Africa for more than 20 years, and he successfully lobbied to ban the apartheid regime's all-white Olympic teams from the games.

from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Dennis Brutus, poet and activist, dies at 85
also AFP: South African activist and poet Dennis Brutus dies at 85
also Democracy Now!: Dennis Brutus (1924-2009): South African Poet and Activist Dies in Cape Town

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Rus Bowden · at 12:32 PM

who worked as a lawyer for a state appellate court judge. His written works include an autobiography, "I Survived Cancer But Never Won the Tour de France," and two poetry books, "Like Some First Human Being" and "Antidotes & Home Remedies," which was a finalist for an Oklahoma Book Award in 2009.

Chastain participated in poetry readings across Oklahoma and the southwest. His writings are humorous and poignant, based largely on his experiences with cancer.

from NewsOK: Norman author Jim Chastain dies after cancer battle

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Rus Bowden · at 12:32 PM

sang darkly comic and often disarmingly candid songs about death, vulnerability, and life's simple joys. A car accident when he was 18 left him partly paralyzed, but he has said that the accident focused him as a musician and a poet.

"It was only after I broke my neck and even like maybe a year later that I really started realizing that I had something to say," he said in a recent radio interview with Terry Gross.

from The New York Times: Arts Beat: Vic Chesnutt, Singer, Dies
also Star Tribune: OurVoices: Remembering Vic Chesnutt

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Rus Bowden · at 12:31 PM

Webber Hospital and then Southern Maine Medical Center for more than 25 years, retiring as charge nurse in the maternity ward. All during these years, she and Chester owned and operated Drakes Island Store in the summer months.

After retiring from nursing, Mary went back to school and earned a degree in fine arts. It was here that she nurtured her love of painting and poetry. She was an avid reader and she also enjoyed plants, gardening, cooking and knitting.

from Seacoastonline.com: Mary Nason Emerson

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Rus Bowden · at 12:30 PM

busy selling crab cakes, Mr. [John P.] Gach fancied himself a struggling poet.

Mr. Gach, who did not attend college, spoke of his evolution as a used-book seller in an Evening Sun interview in 1972.

"I used to be in the seafood business. It must be obvious the preparation one gets there for the book business," he said.

from The Baltimore Sun: John P. Gach

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Rus Bowden · at 12:30 PM

at St. Jude's Novena. Kathryn was well known for her generous acts of charity. She enjoyed writing her own poems.

She was an avid bowler at Elko and Sons, Dupont, and was the league secretary for many years.

from Times Leader: Kathryn Williams Gitkos

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Rus Bowden · at 12:29 PM

trapper, fisherman and enjoyed writing poetry and gardening.

from The Dunn County News: Garry W. Kitzmann

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Rus Bowden · at 12:29 PM

years of singing in the choir, and a keen interest in adult education opportunities were important to her [Janet Knezel]. An insatiable appetite for reading and learning led to volunteer work with adult literacy education. It not only gave her pleasure, but brought transformation to those she helped. In her retirement years, Janet enjoyed auditing college classes. Expressing her thoughts through Haiku poetry reflected her fascination with words.

from Appleton Post-Crescent: Knezel, Janet

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Rus Bowden · at 12:28 PM

of her journalism work without pay.

"She wrote a booklet of poems. She played the organ. She was sharp to the end," Knott said.

She also was a "giver, to neighbors, friends and strangers," Knott said.

Laney's death marks the second passing of a female pioneer in black community journalism, [Ella] Coleman said, citing the death in October of Pamela Thornton, a writer and editor.

from The Columbus Dispatch: Elizabeth C. Laney: 1912-2009--A writer for decades, she inspired others

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Rus Bowden · at 12:28 PM

An Anthology of Byelorussian Poetry from 1828 to the Present Day, the first-ever Belarusian poetry anthology in a western language was published under the auspices of UNESCO. The book was banned for selling in the Soviet Union on the grounds of being politically incorrect.

In 1977, the first translation of Taras na Parnasie translated by Vera Rich and Arnold McMillin was published. A new compilation of Belarusian poetry, Poems on Liberty: Reflections for Belarus translated by Vera Rich came out in 2004.

from Charter'97: Vera Rich, famous British translator of Belarusian literature, died

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Tuesday, December 29, 2009