Poetry & Poets in Rags

Sunday was the 7th anniversary of Poetry & Poets in Rags. I searched through the news, to see what was out there that week, if Google searching for news in poetry would yield usable, informative results. It worked. I posted links to the articles onto Melic's RoundTable and the Atlantic Monthly's Writers' Workshop, both great and former IBPC forums, and both now defunct. After a few weeks, Gina Bryson, then managing editor of the InterBoard Poetry Community, asked if she could publish the column in the Newswire section of the IBPC web pages at Web Del Sol. I hesitated on the commitment, got a similar offer from CE Chaffin of The Melic Review, and said "yes" to Gina.

This week we begin with Simon Armitage, the old-fashioned troubadour, walking the Pennine Way and living off his poetry. After him, we have Philip Larkin, Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Jorge Luis Borges, and more, in our News at Eleven section. Check out our Great Regulars section too, it begins with articles by, in alphabetical order, Marianne Combs, Sarah Crown, Carol Ann Duffy, and Linda Sue Grimes.

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

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Rus Bowden · at 10:41 AM

He started with no money and is instead staging nightly poetry readings in halls, houses and pubs en route in return for donations, accommodation and food.

He is singing for his supper--following the gruelling and sometimes risky route as a modern-day troubadour in an attempt to make his poetry pay.

from BBC News: Simon Armitage puts poetry into motion in Yorkshire

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Rus Bowden · at 10:40 AM

about jazz in a paper such as the Telegraph, during the glory days of saxophonist John Coltrane and the musically and socially radical "new thing" movement of which he was the standard bearer, is explained by his tastes, which he wore emblazoned on both sleeves. Like the more or less contemporaneous French critic Hugues Pannassie, Larkin's interest in jazz stopped abruptly with bop, which he hated, along with everything that came after it, with a vengeance.

But when it came to swing and mainstream, Larkin's taste was acute.

from All About Jazz: Various Artists: Larkin's Jazz

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Rus Bowden · at 10:40 AM

where she would train aristocratic young women to sing religious hymns or songs to Aphrodite; other people think it was kind of like a finishing school; other people think she just had a load of hot chicks with her who fancied having a sing and doing other things together."

Then there are the stories that she was married, had a daughter, was exiled to Sicily for a while because her family was part of the aristocratic infighting. We have the poet Ovid to thank for the story that she killed herself over the unrequited love of a man, Phaon. "It's interesting, the desire to make her straight," says [Jane Montgomery] Griffiths.

from Cherrie: Fragments of Sappho

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Rus Bowden · at 10:39 AM

father, Vinnie or brother Austin--understood the "Loaded Gun" of Emily's arrhythmic life and lines: her fierce privacy and the heartbreaking ellipses of her poems. Her father had likened Austin's college compositions to Shakespeare and wanted to have them published, but he didn't have a clue that his minuscule daughter in her velvet snood was one of the great "singers" of the 19th century. In fact, none of the men in her life had the least idea of what her poetry was about.

from The Washington Post: Lyndall Gordon's "Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson & Her Family's Feuds"
also The New York Review of Books: Blog: Emily Dickinson in the Bronx

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Rus Bowden · at 10:38 AM

went through some incredible mutation, as though--a little science fiction, why not?--aliens had transported him up to their spaceship and put him down again with a new mind, a new poetry apparatus," [C.K.] Williams writes. "It is really that crazy."

This kind of rave, from a proper Princeton University professor, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle award, isn't atypical, as loopy as it sounds.

from The Plain Dealer: Fall into Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass,' and let poet C.K. Williams accompany you

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Rus Bowden · at 10:38 AM

from early childhood by three nightmares: the mirror, the mask and the labyrinth. He writes in "Mirrors," also translated by Reid, of the anxieties of proliferation that such reflections produce:

I look on them as infinite, elemental
fulfillers of a very ancient pact
to multiply the world, as in the act
of generation, sleepless and dangerous.

from The Nation: Mirror, Mask, Labyrinth

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Rus Bowden · at 10:36 AM

of the writing groups in far-flung areas of Wyoming, and their publishing successes. She also notes how relatively well-funded Wyoming's Art Council is, "to the tune of $2 million a year."

So not only can Wyoming boast that Cody is the new Literary Capital of America (as I've declared it to be), it also hosts the Highest Writing Group in America. I won't make a joke about how that distinction used to belong to Naropa's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, but you can.

from New West: Social Media Uprising at the Jack Kerouac School and Wyoming Writers Band Together

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Rus Bowden · at 10:36 AM

His raw dialectic explores a peculiar American schizophrenia, internalized as a form of well-being. The Southwest is a particularly apt location to explore this split identity. It promises openness, freedom and liberation from the burdens of history, but its other side is continuing repression. Sáenz's poetics expose this schism at every turn.

from The Statesman: Two poets of Southwestern alienation

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Rus Bowden · at 10:35 AM

and Professor of Philosophy. Here we publish his poem 'Remembered Summer'. His next full-length collection, At Lake Scugog, will be published in 2011 in the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets.

Always, in that season, came the point in the day

from Granta: Remembered Summer

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Rus Bowden · at 10:35 AM

I think gardening is one of the oldest, maybe the oldest art," he [W.S. Merwin] tells me. "In my lifetime at least I watched something completely reverse itself." The garden used to be "a little enclave", keeping wilderness at bay. "The moment human beings became able to destroy life anywhere on earth, it absolutely at that moment changes around," says Merwin. "The garden becomes a place where you keep out human enterprise and you try to preserve something resembling the natural world. And that's a complete turnaround, and it happened immediately." One consequence is that "every conservationist, every environmentalist, is really a gardener".

from The National: Gardening notes: America's new poet laureate, W.S. Merwin
also The Daily Princetonian: 'Prince' Q&A with poet laureate Merwin '48

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Rus Bowden · at 10:34 AM

"I'm able to have it be like a tender skin on water and buildings and cliffs."

And then: "I can make it roll. Scroll slowly. At the best of times, catch and hold people."

And finally: "I want to think that everything about the buildings, the humidity, the night air, the insects becomes part of the experience of reading the words."

from The Boston Globe: Illuminated poetry delivers insights at ICA

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Rus Bowden · at 10:21 AM

since 1980, her work appearing in the Long Prairie Leader, the Morrison County Record, and the St. Cloud Times, and in a collection called Rural Routes: Essays on Living in Rural Minnesota. Rylander lives with her husband in Grey Eagle, Minnesota.

Planting the Cemetery Box

from Marianne Combs: Minnesota Public Radio: State of the Arts: Minnesota Poetry: Edith Rylander's "Planting the Cemetery Box"

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Rus Bowden · at 10:20 AM

herself is acutely aware--and she's in no doubt about its origins. In May 2003, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent the "full gamut" of treatment (her oncology team are named in Of Mutability's acknowledgments). The process took almost a year, and was deemed, in the cautious terms of cancer medicine, to have been a success. But the remedy left its own scars. During the course of her treatment, Shapcott found herself facing "not only physical changes, which were quite profound, but mental and emotional ones".

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: Jo Shapcott: I'm not someone chasing her own ambulance

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Rus Bowden · at 10:20 AM

[Elsa] Barker's simple sonnet is as accessible as prayer, though there are startling sensual undertones here--'the breath and glamour of the rose' is lovely. The word "guerdon' in line eight means 'reward' and sits nicely in the scale of the phrase with 'quest'."

from Carol Ann Duffy: The Daily Mirror: Poetry Corner

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Rus Bowden · at 10:19 AM

Minerva seeks to solve her problem by visiting the doctor in order the kill her unborn child, "He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers"--her fate with Doctor Meyers left her dead. She describes her death as a growing numbness from her "feet up/Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Edgar Lee Masters' Minerva Jones

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Rus Bowden · at 10:19 AM

Fortunately, most online dating companies that require a small fee to use their services weed those people out, but from what I understand--and admittedly this knowledge is garnered from hearsay--those free dating sites are quite good (I know two couples who have met through OKcupid.com, and they are all very normal, healthy, unweird people). It is highly unlikely that you'll meet a woman like the one described in Anne Sexton's "Her Kind":

from Kristen Hoggatt: The Smart Set: Ask a Poet: Profiling

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Rus Bowden · at 10:18 AM

for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books," the company said.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO, called the event "the tipping point" for digital books, meaning his company's digital-book department and its Kindle.

Perhaps we should place that claim into perspective.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Amazon 'kindles' e-book fire

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Rus Bowden · at 10:17 AM

by Eleanor Lerman

What do you think has come over me?

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The City, Berobed in Blue by Eleanor Lerman

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A Deposition
by Anne Porter

The nursemaid Agnes Cassidy

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: A Deposition by Anne Porter

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Forms of Love
by Kim Addonizio

I love you but I'm married.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Forms of Love by Kim Addonizio

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Just to Feel Human
by James Tate

A single apple grew on our tree, which

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Just to Feel Human by James Tate

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Perhaps the World Ends Here
by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

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Why I am Not a Vegetarian
by David Oliveira

It's not that I love animals less,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Why I am Not a Vegetarian by David Oliveira

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Why I Love Mornings
by Nancy Boutilier

Ah, the possibility

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Why I Love Mornings by Nancy Boutilier

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Rus Bowden · at 10:17 AM

whose work I have admired for almost as long as I have been writing. Here he beautifully captures a quiet moment of reflection.

Rain

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 278

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Rus Bowden · at 10:16 AM

because their love will garner each one her equal share of Lear's vast kingdom. In birth order, Goneril and Regan strive to speak the words Lear wants to hear, regardless of their sincerity. Their speeches please him, and he turns finally to Cordelia, who replies with honesty that she has nothing to say, her heart being full of the true love she bears her father.

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: On Writers & Writing: Shakespeare's 'King Lear' gives glimpse of two fathers

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Rus Bowden · at 10:16 AM

How Fragile the Air

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-Notes: How Fragile the Air

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Rus Bowden · at 10:15 AM

of the work exists--the owners of the manuscript also find themselves in possession of its literature. Yet the two things ought not to be conflated. We can easily envisage an owner owning a manuscript while we collectively own and know the piece of literature it contains. But in the case of the works of Kafka that are lying in those safes, we're not allowed to do that. Both the manuscripts and the literature are in the possession of the owners.

from Michael Rosen: The Guardian: Owning manuscripts is one thing: owning the contents is quite another

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Rus Bowden · at 10:14 AM

is a study in paradox. It's a love poem that deconstructs love, a pastoral that has seen not only death but bio-diversity. Conversational, daringly sexual, it remains a soliloquy. There may be two in this campagna but two are not one, and the poet has no hesitation in admitting it.

By 1854, Browning had been married long enough to admit it, of course.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: Two in the Campagna by Robert Browning

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Rus Bowden · at 10:14 AM

in the trajectory of the manuscript that became "Threshold." What motivated you to keep trying over nine years and 25 near misses?

The reason I kept sending out the manuscript was the same reason I kept envisioning an end to my illness: If I gave up, it would mean accepting the life I had--and I didn't want to settle for that compromised version of myself.

from B.T. Shaw: The Oregonian: Poetry: Jennifer Richter on hope, health and near misses

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Rus Bowden · at 10:13 AM

was 16 years old living on the family farm. The family didn't have a radio. His uncle was the sheriff, and drove out to their house that Sunday afternoon to tell them that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Stanley said, "I didn't know who she was."

After high school Stan got sucked into the vacuum of the war.

from Terry Wooten: Traverse City Record-Eagle: Sharing the Elders Project: Lifelines: 'Beach party' in Iwo Jima

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Rus Bowden · at 10:11 AM

by Barbara LaMorticella

The Burj Dubai

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Three by Barbara LaMorticella

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Rus Bowden · at 10:11 AM

by David Wheatley

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Curlew by the Humber

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Rus Bowden · at 10:09 AM

July 25, 2010

Wonders are like dreams it is one place to escape.

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase: 'Wonders'

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Rus Bowden · at 10:08 AM

i)
a couple of things I'm sure of:

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Extracts from "holiday"

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Rus Bowden · at 10:08 AM

by Alice Fulton

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Alice Fulton: "Claustrophilia"

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Rus Bowden · at 10:07 AM

by Austin Kleon

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: Two from 'Newspaper Blackout'

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Rus Bowden · at 10:06 AM

they invite us to consider how "we are tenants in our own context." The unspoken realization, however, is that we are also often alone. Even the closest are "two humans together, growing alone." As funny and deadpan as [Ken] Chen's personas can be, it is their sobriety that stands out.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Hand-Held Poetics

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Rus Bowden · at 10:06 AM

By Marian Haddad

from San Antonio Express-News: Poetry: Poetry: 'Statue of the Sleeping'

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Rus Bowden · at 10:05 AM

By T.R. Hummer

from Slate: "Milk"--By T.R. Hummer

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Rus Bowden · at 10:04 AM

second collection Territory, is about the small mining village of Leadhills; galena is a natural form of lead, found in the area. It asks us to think about what is really valuable and precious about home, and what we're prepared to do for it.

We walk up Hunt Law, Peter and I.

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Month: Galena by Andrew Forster

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Rus Bowden · at 9:56 AM

write poetry and wrote an autobiography. She also enjoyed reading, doing crossword puzzles and other games, and putting together jigsaw puzzles. She did cross-country taxi driving for the Amish.

from Sturgis Journal: Fannie H. Chupp

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Rus Bowden · at 9:55 AM

"but I always believed David was first a poet. Of my various acquaintances in more than 30 years in journalism, I have met precious few historical figures. David Dick was one.

"He will be remembered as one of Kentucky's native sons who knew and loved the Commonwealth and who could tell its story."

from Kentucky Kernel: UK professor, CBS reporter David Dick dies

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Rus Bowden · at 9:55 AM

I carried with me a manuscript of 31 Poems by G.F. Dutton, which I published under the Old Fire Station Poets imprint. Geoffrey followed this up with his first collection, Camp One, published in 1978. In 1983, he retired from university research--a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, with three honorary degrees.

Three volumes of poetry appeared subsequently from Bloodaxe Books: Squaring the Waves in 1986, The Concrete Garden in 1991, and, in 2002, The Bare Abundance, Selected Poems 1975--2001. A testament to his garden, Harvesting the Edge, was published in 1994, followed by Some Branch Against the Sky, a guide to marginal horticulture, in 1997.

from The Guardian: Geoffrey Dutton obituary

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Rus Bowden · at 9:54 AM

experimental contributions to such seminal breakthroughs as the antiproton and the J/psi subatomic particles, and the mysterious dark energy that accelerates the expansion of the universe. He was also an accomplished artist who illustrated two books of poems written by his wife, Judith, Sonnets from Aesop and Sarah Laughed: Sonnets from Genesis.

from Scientific Computing: Gerson Goldhaber, Renowned Particle Physicist, Dies at 86

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Rus Bowden · at 9:54 AM

was published in 1974 while her last completed book, House of Shadows, was published earlier this year.

"She was always writing and her writing is her legacy," said her son.

Gower first started writing short stories and poems when her family was young, and went on to sell millions of books.

from BBC News: Novelist Iris Gower dies aged 75

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Rus Bowden · at 9:53 AM

he [Erroll Wall] said, of his cousin [Howard Hall]'s desire to relocate. "But somewhere something went south on it," he said. "Looking through his stuff here I found poetry he wrote back in the 70s and 80s. He was pretty tortured. He had a lot of issues of depression his whole life. He was just a lost soul looking for himself and looking for a reason to be."

from Silver City Sun-News: Cousin still troubled by Ariz. man's suicide in wilderness

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Rus Bowden · at 9:52 AM

during WWII in the Philippines, the Air Force Reserve during the Korean War and retired from Keyport Torpedo Station. Harry enjoyed talking with people, bowling, playing the harmonica, yodeling, farming, writing poetry, being a volunteer fireman and eating.Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/jul/21/harry-edward-lesoing-89/#ixzz0uey26ORy

from Kitsap Sun: Harry Edward Lesoing, 89

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Rus Bowden · at 9:52 AM

Homestead Manor, the Rev. [E. Linwood] Horseman conducted Sunday services there for the residents until the recent decline of his health. He was a talented musician and a gifted poet and would write poetry for friends and family for many special occasions, such as anniversaries and special church events.

from The Daily Times: E. Linwood Horseman

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Rus Bowden · at 9:51 AM

the invasion of Iraq, perhaps taking pride in early condemning it, Bob [Potter] was on State Street every Saturday, marching. Among other activities, he was a great friend of the profound Arlington West Memorial, offering both physical support and words in a moving poem about ". . . the crosses and the grizzled veterans/Who tend them like a flowered garden of regret."

It may indeed be impossible to separate Bob Potter from his many activisms.

from Santa Barbara Independent: Bob Potter, 1934-2010

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Rus Bowden · at 9:50 AM

Fellow by the American Nuclear Society in 2001, Dr. [George J.] Rotariu was also a member of St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Sigma Xi, Alpha Chi Sigma, Alpha Tau Omega and the American Institute of Chemists, and a founding member of the OSIMA Poets Society International. He was named one of the 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the 20th Century.

At various times during his life, Dr. Rotariu wrote poetry, taught dancing, played the harmonica, took many photographs and painted.

from The Daily Times: George J. Rotariu

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Rus Bowden · at 9:50 AM

and literary and historical studies. Among his published material is "Kana Li Qalb" [I Had a Heart] in 1962, "Tha'er Bila Hawiya" [Revolutionary without an Identity] in 1966, "Al Nar Wal Tin" [Fire and Clay] in 1966, "Amtar Al Huzn Wal Dam" [Rains of Sorrow and Blood] in 1978, "Riyah Al Sineen" [Winds of the Years] published in Rome in 1994, in addition to many others.

He contributed immensely to Arab literature with his main works in Arab Poetry in the 20th Century, "An anthological Collection of Contemporary Arab Poets" in 5,000 pages published in 1994 in Rome, and "Poets of Palestine in the 20th century: An Anthological Collection" published in 2001, among others.

from Ammon News: Renowned journalist Radi Saddouq passes away

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Rus Bowden · at 9:49 AM

making crafts, writing poems and short stories. She very much loved spending time with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and she volunteered to work with blind children.

from Baxter Bulletin: Ruth Mae Stefan, 89

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Rus Bowden · at 9:49 AM

her whole life and loved to be around her children.

Christine loved to paint, write poetry and music, sewing, embroidery, gardening, and was an avid reader.

from International Falls Journal: Christine Melvina Weum, 96

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Rus Bowden · at 9:48 AM

crocheted and sewed and had a wonderful singing voice, which she loved to use while entertaining her many grandchildren. Dola enjoyed writing poetry, and she was considered the family historian.

from Breckenridge American: Dola Williams

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Tuesday, July 27, 2010