Poetry & Poets in Rags

Every once in a while, we have a week when several articles on poetry are published, any one of which could easily be our lead story another time. We begin with a poem by Simon Armitage, hopefully a poem that can make things happen. We then turn our attention to Antarctica as a unique source of poetic inspiration. I'll stop listing here, and let you get to reading, but to mention that I put the links to The Guardian newspaper's Romantic poets series on our Back Page (the poems are hyperlinked in our Great Regulars section, as are Carol Rumens' articles on them under her name).

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

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Rus Bowden · at 7:08 PM

The Beacon

Dusk, doubt, the growing depth of an evening sky,

from Times Online: Simon Armitage's Madeleine McCann poem
also The Times: 1,000 days after disappearance, Madeleine McCann inspires Armitage poem
also Nouse: Simon Armitage

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Rus Bowden · at 7:08 PM

seven days a week. "Work in that environment is very intense," he says. "The cold polar environment never goes away. You walk out the door, it's there. You go to the plane, it's there. Everywhere you fly, it's there. Nature dominates. Your first impression is, 'How could anybody survive in a place like this?'"

Nature dominates in Smith's poems, too, which he composed in his dorm room during his few off-hours. As a commander, he felt uncomfortable having a drink with the enlisted men at the Southern Exposure bar. But he also felt alienated from the outside world, even from his family..

from Riverfront Times: Poetry in a Cold Climate: Ron Smith found his muse in Antarctica's vast icy wilderness
also Riverfront Times: More Pictures of Antarctica and Poems by Ron Smith

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Rus Bowden · at 7:07 PM

he [Derek Walcott] says, "is the way poetry has been taught. There is a wilful and perverse obscurity about so much contemporary poetry. I blame those who have been teaching it for making it remote for the public.

"Poetry is useless if you cannot understand it. Look, I get angry and irritated about this, but I don't think it's because I'm an old man. The simple fact is that some of this obscure poetry is like abstract expressionism in art. Some think it's clever, but I'm not convinced."

from The Sunday Times: Nobel prize winner is looking forward to lessons in poetry
also Stabroek News: Derek Walcott the artist

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Rus Bowden · at 7:07 PM

is very effective. For a Buddhist, when you are under a pattanikkujjana you are no longer a Buddhist. For the government it is very effective. They are Buddhist--nominally of course--and the pattanikkujjana has a very bad effect on them. As Buddhists, they play the religion card. They assume they are the guardians of the religion. They are the promoters of the religion. They put up big pagodas and give support to the monasteries.

But, although it is effective, in order to have a pronounced change more is needed.

from Mizzima: A conversation with U Win Tin

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Rus Bowden · at 7:06 PM

must be deducted from his prison term starting from the date of his arrest. But the court counted his judicial custody starting from the date of trial commencement. So, the previous three months custody means unlawful custody. In this way he is losing his lawful rights. We call for the immediate release of poet Saw Wei," exclaimed AAPP-B Joint-Secretary Bo Kyi.

from Mizzima: AAPP calls for release of poet Saw Wei

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Rus Bowden · at 7:05 PM

were left standing out in the cold Tuesday when a mysterious nocturnal visitor didn't keep his standing date to toast the author at his Baltimore burial plot.

The so-called Poe Toaster's absence yesterday for the first time in more than 60 years has renewed the decades-long fascination with the visitor's identity. It's also an ominous indication that a beloved local ritual, a cherished example of Baltimore quirkiness, might be coming to an end--a possibility that the poet's partisans hurry to deny.

from The Baltimore Sun: The man who wasn't there

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Rus Bowden · at 7:04 PM

and mime, often doing both simultaneously, having reportedly studied with Etienne Decroux in the 60s, who also taught the famous mime Marcel Marceau. "We had a mime company in Boston, The Silent Players . . . we got good reviews," Barnum said. "My mime partner was born here and went to France. He spoke French and English . . . (and) traveled across France in a donkey cart, doing mime and writing poetry. I created a mime, 'Rope and the Flower.' It was sold and went all over the world."

from Bridgewater Independent: 'The Last Performing Barnum' to appear at Poet's Pathway

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Rus Bowden · at 7:04 PM

in what water actually is, its substance, its realness. While water in literature is often a metaphor for what cannot be expressed, in life it has a miraculous physicality all its own and Gross inhabits this completely. It makes for a remarkably solid book despite its fluid foundations. In "Pour", the falling water is "this slick and fluted glitter,/slightly/arcing, rebraiding itself as it falls,//as for tangible/seconds it's a thin/taut string of surface tension//that my hand feels, on the handle,/as a pulse, a pull,/a thing//in space, that lives in this world".

from The Guardian: The Water Table by Philip Gross

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Rus Bowden · at 7:03 PM

delighted and bewildered" to have won. Although he wrote love poems to his wife during her lifetime, they never discussed him writing poems about her after her death, he said, "but I think she knew I was bound to turn to the only thing I could do in life to make sense of it for myself".

He added: "I'm still grieving. I won't ever forget this wonderful woman but, at the same time, it's helped me to put my thoughts in order."

Late home one night, I found

from The Times: Poet's ‘life-enhancing' tribute to dead wife, A Scattering, wins Costa
also BBC News: Poet Christopher Reid wins Costa Book prize
also Irish Times: Reid wins Costa Book of the Year

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Rus Bowden · at 7:02 PM

how many countries have a national day devoted to the celebration of a poet?

Today on 25 January--though not because of a formal holiday or an official laureateship--Scots (and friends of Scotland) meet to celebrate the life and works of our bard, Robert Burns, at Burns Suppers at home and in far-flung locations across the globe. Most countries define themselves through patron saints, or battles, or revolutions or kings' birthdays and use those icons in commemoration of their nationality. We in Scotland are part of a very select group who capture our national spirit by toasting a home-grown poetic genius.

from The Scotsman: Burns night: Poetry and emotion
from The Guardian: It's Burns Night--sae let the Lord be thankit

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Rus Bowden · at 7:01 PM

the natural world and the inner world of feeling. He also connected the two indivisibly. We are his heirs, and we see and feel through him. His vision illumined our landscape.

His name is inextricably connected with the Lake District, where he was born in Cockermouth in 1770.

from The Guardian: An introduction to the poetry of William Wordsworth
also The Guardian: The Romantic Poets
also The Guardian: An introduction to the poetry of Robert Burns
also The Guardian: An introduction to the poetry of Lord Byron

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Rus Bowden · at 6:47 PM

In 1958, he produced Things Fall Apart, one of the great novels of the 20th century. It tells the story of Okonkwo, a brilliant, brutal, fatally proud Igbo warrior who is brought down by his confrontation with white missionaries. The book made Achebe, in Nadine Gordimer's words, the "father of modern African literature".

Here's another, bigger shiver.

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: Chinua Achebe: the lord of misrule

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Rus Bowden · at 6:47 PM

Lawson Fusao Inada, who served two terms beginning in 2006, is due to step down and nominations are being accepted until Feb. 15.

The job is a good one: $10,000 per year, plus an activities and travel budget of up to $10,000 annually.

from Jeff Baker: The Oregonian: Oregon's looking for a new poet laureate

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Kim Stafford was in his stocking feet--it's dojo policy to leave your shoes at the door--and completely in his element. He moved to a discussion of William Stafford's poem "Fifteen" and described how his father "started with the ordinary." The elder Stafford once found a rusty bike near a road and used his imagination and poetic gifts to create what his son called "a poem of great longing and promise."

from Jeff Baker: The Oregonian: William Stafford's birthday rekindles love of poetry

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Rus Bowden · at 6:46 PM

second creator (God being the first) that creates a second nature (that is, art). And the purpose of that art is to teach and delight and to lift readers into the perfection of the poem's universe. The Philip Sidney bumper sticker for this aesthetic: "Look into thy heart and write."

His great sonnet series, "Astrophel and Stella," brings the star lover (Astrophel) in search of his unrequited star (Stella).

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: Drawing connections between poetry, past and present

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Rus Bowden · at 6:46 PM

of craft; not just the craft of poetry, but her love of textiles, dressmaking, and paper. Lorsung's artistic talents are not limited to being a wordsmith; she also used to have her own line of clothing and now creates prints and drawings.

from Marianne Combs: Minnesota Public Radio: State of the Arts: Minnesota Poetry: Eireann Lorsung's "Knitting"

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Rus Bowden · at 6:45 PM

is that he heard his own voice; that he reached the point where he couldn't write without feeling he was repeating himself. That's the worst thing that can happen to a writer. A new reader shouldn't be able to find you in your work, though someone who's read more may begin to." [--E.L. Doctorow]

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: E.L. Doctorow: 'I don't have a style, but the books do'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:45 PM

and painter with an Irish-Catholic background. This poem, taken from her excellent pamphlet The Cast-Iron Shore (erbacce-press, Liverpool) does indeed have a painterly quality to it--the half-open doorways, the empty kitchen with its dripping tap, the crockery, all seem images from a stilllife.

from Carol Ann Duffy: The Daily Mirror: Poetry Corner

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Rus Bowden · at 6:44 PM

over which to become nostalgic, the collection of images is striking: the listener can see the fire burning, sending up its "blue-black smoke," and hear the crackle as the fire rages, and smell the smoke as it rises to the "sapphire skies," which the listener can also visualize. That image cluster is so strong that the reader/listener is lulled into oblivion regarding the possible damage caused by the fire.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: McKay's I Shall Return

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Rus Bowden · at 6:43 PM

I'm afraid the shadows on the wall will turn into demons," when you turn out the lights, the shadows on the wall will probably turn into demons because that is your preconception. And once preconceptions enter the brain, they're hard to get rid of, kind of like cockroaches:

And where there's one there's probably a million
more who lie and laugh in cracks close by.
At first they seem so pitiful and base
feeding on what we leave behind.

from Kristen Hoggatt: The Smart Set: Ask a Poet: Quitting Time?

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Rus Bowden · at 6:40 PM

too ill to follow the discord and dismay that her generous donation caused. The Poetry Foundation, established to handle the millions, is now wracked by dissension and departures of its trustees, losing more than half of its members recently.

Of course, it's the money that's at the root of the trouble. Dissident trustees charge the foundation's president John Barr with mismanagement of the money. The Illinois attorney general is looking into the charges and so far, has yet to find any violations of the state's nonprofit regulations.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Trouble in poetry paradise

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Rus Bowden · at 6:40 PM

and National Book Award finalist Rae Armantrout ("Versed") were poetry finalists, along with D.A. Powell's "Chronic," Rachel Zucker's "Museum of Accidents" and Eleanor Ross Taylor's "Captive Voices."

from Hillel Italie: San Francisco Chronicle: National Book Critics Circle prize nominees chosen

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Rus Bowden · at 6:39 PM

by W. S. Merwin

When it is time I follow the black dog

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: By Dark by W. S. Merwin

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Hitchhiker
by Galway Kinnell

After a moment, the driver, a salesman

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Hitchhiker by Galway Kinnell

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The Ineffable
by George Bilgere

I'm sitting here reading the paper,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Ineffable by George Bilgere

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Matilda Who Told Lies, and Was Burned to Death
by Hilaire Belloc

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Matilda Who Told Lies, and Was Burned to Death by Hilaire Belloc

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One of the Butterflies
by W. S. Merwin

The trouble with pleasure is the timing

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: One of the Butterflies by W. S. Merwin

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The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

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Telepathy
by Michael Dennis Browne

Today I explained telepathy to you,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Telepathy by Michael Dennis Browne

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Rus Bowden · at 6:39 PM

wrote me a letter in which he listed everything he and my uncle had eaten in the past week. That was the news. I love this poem by Nancyrose Houston of Seattle for the way it plays with the character of those letters from home that many of us have received.

The Letter From Home

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 252

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Rus Bowden · at 6:38 PM

Greek comedies to have survived, and he wrote some blistering satires of the corruption of his day. One of is best and most hilarious works is "Lysistrata," an anti-war satire in which the central character, an Athenian woman, organizes a highly effective protest against the war with Sparta. She and her female allies take over the Parthenon and refuse to have anything to do with men until they bring the war to an end. When the men finally relent, Lysistrata makes this speech near the close of the play:

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: On Poetry: Poets, writers can offer their words for world peace

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Rus Bowden · at 6:37 PM

Body Armor

Everybody is looking for work

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-notes: Body Armor

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[by E. Ethelbert Miller]

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-notes: Faith in Numbers

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By Chance

From out of destruction

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-notes: From Norman Jordan

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[by Franz Wright]

Hell

But if they were condemned to suffer

from E. Ethelbert Miller: E-notes: Hell

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Rus Bowden · at 6:36 PM

audience for such things: it has been estimated that at the time of Keats' death, the combined sales of the three books published during his lifetime amounted to 200 copies. By the middle of the 19th century, greatly helped by the example of Tennyson, as well as the advocacy of his friends Arthur Hallam (the subject of In Memoriam) and Richard Monckton Milnes (author of the first biography of Keats, which appeared in 1848), things had changed.

from Andrew Motion: The Guardian: An introduction to the poetry of John Keats:

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Rus Bowden · at 6:32 PM

search terms, especially politically sensitive key words like "Tiananmen 1989" and "Tanks in Tiananmen Square" were available early Thursday, but began to be blocked again around noon.

The photo of the man who walked in front of a column of tanks holding nothing but a shopping bag during the military crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing, June, 1989, drew special interest from netizens.

"The Tank Man isn't the right word to call him," wrote Twitter user shuil after joining dozens of netizens in searching for the previously blocked picture. "He should be called the Tank Knight."

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Netizens React Over Google
also Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Chinese 'Want Web Freedom'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:32 PM

through time. We are neither 17 nor 70--we are 2,800 years old if we open up The Iliad, a youthful 600 if it is The Canterbury Tales.

Our starting point should always be a sense of "humility"--an expectation that the author knows more than us. Yet as [Robert] Southey points out, while we "love" their "virtues," we are not afraid to "condemn" their "faults" either. This closely attentive moral intelligence contrasts with the lazy desire to find nothing but racism, misogyny or imperialism in the past.

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'The Scholar' by Robert Southey

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Rus Bowden · at 6:31 PM

her funeral, and insisted it be a "celebration" rather than an occasion for mourning. Dozens of "E.T." balloons were released into the air, symbolizing "unconditional love." Perhaps we were to picture her bicycling through the sky toward home.

Behind the balloons the painful fact of mourning remains: even a good death is seldom good for the survivors. The matter-of-fact mordancy of Emily Dickinson, the supreme poet of grief, may provide more balm to the mourner than the glad tidings of those who talk about how death can enrich us.

from Meghan O'Rourke: The New Yorker: Good Grief

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Rus Bowden · at 6:30 PM

a refreshing dose of reality. A gifted poet as well as a sculptor and painter, he wrote energetically about despair, detailing with relish the unpleasant side of his work on the famous ceiling. The poem, in Italian, is an extended (or "tailed") sonnet, with a coda of six lines appended to the standard 14. The translation I like best is by the American poet Gail Mazur.

from Robert Pinsky: Slate: Labor Pains: Michelangelo's poem about the awkward parturition of the Sistine Chapel

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Rus Bowden · at 6:30 PM

of authenticity, it is the sustained energy of the line, the syntax and the argument that prove the impression is rooted in the real thing. There is a personality to Burns's tone, and an energy to the syntax, that seem literally physical. This is not only a matter of diction. The very forms he favoured with the riches of his native language--the song, and the verse-epistle--connect directly to the voice.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: A Poet's Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter by Robert Burns
also Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: The Romantic poets: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt by Lord Byron
also Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: The Romantic poets: Nutting by William Wordsworth
also Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: The Romantic poets: On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer by John Keats

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Rus Bowden · at 6:29 PM

of isolation, and the way in which it encourages the inner world to expand until it blocks out "fallow and stepwise" outer experience. Nevertheless, key encounters structure the book.

The suicide, a man who wants his wife murdered, the beloved complicit in an erotics of pain, a single mother, the jail-bait and finally the phantom self: each acts as a dark archetype to reveal aspects of the psyche.

from Fiona Sampson: The Independent: Waking Up In Toytown, By John Burnside

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Rus Bowden · at 6:26 PM

of [Dag] Hammarskjöld's religious preoccupations until after his death--although, not long after he became Secretary-General, he did say in a radio interview with Edward R. Murrow that "the explanation of how man should live a life of active social service in full harmony with himself as a member of the community of spirit, I found in the writings of those great medieval mystics for whom ‘self-surrender' had been the way to self-realization, and who in ‘singleness of mind' and ‘inwardness' had found strength to say yes to every demand which the needs of their neighbors made them face, and to say yes also to every fate life had in store for them when they followed the call of duty as they understood it."

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: The holy and the spirit of our age

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Rus Bowden · at 6:26 PM

By Gary Corseri

Why are these poets writing about Achilles?

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Ahmad and Corseri

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Rus Bowden · at 6:24 PM

by John Ash, after Cavafy

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: In a Syrian Harbour by John Ash, after Cavafy

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from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto I
by Lord Byron

from The Observer: The Romantic poets: from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto I

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The Destruction of Sennacherib
by Lord Byron

from The Observer: The Romantic poets: The Destruction of Sennacherib: Lord Byron

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from English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
by Lord Byron

from The Observer: The Romantic poets: English Bards: Lord Byron

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On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
by Lord Byron

from The Observer: The Romantic poets: On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year: Lord Byron

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Ode on Melancholy
by John Keats

from The Observer: Ode on Melancholy: John Keats

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Ode to a Nightingale
by John Keats

from The Observer: Ode to a Nightingale

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from Sleep and Poetry
by John Keats

from The Observer: from Sleep and Poetry

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To Autumn
by John Keats

from The Observer: To Autumn: John Keats

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Rus Bowden · at 6:23 PM

Think of what your commodity will be. It could be anything that can be bought and sold: lollipops, farmland, petrol, body parts, microchips, precious metals . . . Make some notes about what your commodity is and what it does.

from The Guardian: Poetry Workshop: Tony Williams' poetry workshop

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Rus Bowden · at 6:23 PM

January 24, 2010

Going up and down the aisles in the

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase: 'I Know That for Sure'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:20 PM

son of a piano tuner, and died in December tragically after being knocked down by a car. At his funeral in East Finchley which was attended by the Clarion Singers, who came down by coach from Birmingham, the Internationale was sung with gusto by the WMA contingent.

I also learnt that Aubrey has left behind a wealth of musical compositions that need to be given a public airing. One such marvellous song was sung beautifully by soloist Maria Caravanas. The music was written by Aubrey in 1947 to this poem by William Gallagher MP.

from Morning Star: Well Versed: Dartmoor

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Rus Bowden · at 6:18 PM

by Cynthia Cruz

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Diagnosis

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Visiting Paris
by Vijay Seshadri

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Visiting Paris

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Rus Bowden · at 6:10 PM

)))) Listen

Early January afternoon, I stand in my own port of pain

from PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Ports of Sorrow'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:10 PM

Transparent

from Portsmouth Herald News: Poem: Transparent

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Rus Bowden · at 6:09 PM

His scenarios are described as if at the very moment they become visible, before any conclusions may be drawn--but the characters within them seem to have been living in this condition for hours, days, or longer. Although the poems' microplots entail social situations, they cancel or disregard the potential for shared values or acts that may be performed together to create a third way.

[by Joel Brouwer]

Lesser Evils

from Powells: Review-A-Day: "And So", by Joel Brouwer

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Rus Bowden · at 6:09 PM

Mother bought it second-hand

from San Antonio Express-News: Poetry: 'Piano'

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Rus Bowden · at 6:07 PM

"Isla en el tacto" (1965), "Canciones para tu historia" (1936-1939) and "Todo el mar en la ola" (1989), as well as essays about Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario and Cuban poets Nicolas Guillen, Jose Maria Heredia and Jose Marti.

Augier was a "close friend and comrade-in-arms in literary and revolutionary work" of Guillen, the official daily Juventud Rebelde said.

He and Guillen worked together for years in the leadership of the Cuban Writers and Artists Union, the newspaper said.

from Latin American Herald Tribune: Cuban Poet Angel Augier Dies

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Rus Bowden · at 6:07 PM

in 1968 E.C. and was one of those, who made significant contribution in the struggle to topple the dictatorial Derg regime.

Artiste Eyasu has played significant role in mobilizing the public for the bitter struggle and later joined the cultural group established by TPLF.

The late Eyasu served the group as coordinator, trainer, writer, poet and vocalist. Over 70 to 80 percent of the group's songs, which conveyed political and social messages, were produced by the late Eyasu.

from The Ethiopian News Agency: Ethiopia--Artiste Eyasu laid to rest

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Rus Bowden · at 6:06 PM

Christian lady I have known for years, Inez Beville. She was 94, God blessed her with many wonderful years, yes, we are going to miss her. She was the widow of Johnny Beville who passed some years ago. Inez wrote poetry and published her poems back in the 1960s. I used to read them. I have her book in the museum now.

from The Progress-Index: Mayor grandpa again number 5 little girl 6 pounds, 6 ounces, Sara Elizabeth Smith
also The Progress-Index: Inez H. Beville

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Rus Bowden · at 6:06 PM

a baseball man, a piano man, a vocalist, a poet, a storyteller supreme, and almost 40 years ago, the kind of fellow who would go out of his way to befriend a young baseball writer for no good reason. Except, that's just [Bobby] Bragan for you.

Through the years, if I wanted to hear a good story, I'd call. If he had a good story, he'd call. The man was baseball history. But Bobby was also humanitarian history.

from Star-Telegram: Bobby Bragan was a treasure who touched so many

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010