Poetry & Poets in Rags

We begin this week with the war poetry of Jon Michael Turner, set within an article that discusses veteran suicide and how more veterans take their own lives each year, than all the soldiers we have lost in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. This, our "war" on suicide, is ten times bigger and on our home continent.

Many of the other articles in our News at Eleven section would have, in almost any other week, been our Back Page article, the eleventh of the eleven, the article with a different twist. This week's is a John Lennon poetry contest, that if you write, you may want to enter. But we also link to an item on Allen Ginsberg's photography, another on a new poet laureate of Wimbledon tennis, and we look into the biggest Shakespeare hoax of all time.

You'll find lot's more in our News at Eleven section, and I have not even mentioned our other two section, our Great Regulars, and our Poetic Obituaries.

Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

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than are being killed in our wars in the Middle East. The sad statistics are at the end of this article, but the following poem by a 24-year-old former Marine, who slashed his wrists twice after four years of duty and two tours of combat, tells it all.

You fell off the seat as the handlebars turned

from Veteran's Today: Soldiers & Suicide: A Warrior Poet's Nightmare

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a "take away" principle. If they see something that doesn't belong to them, they take it. I saw about thirty young people during three days in prison. Young people are drug addicts, those who are older are alcoholics. What the young had to go through! They had bruises, they couldn't move normally. They were beaten and tortured, they admitted both what they had and hadn't committed. I was frightened not by actions of certain sergeants, but by how the machine works. This is a machine of destruction. This is repressive machine!" Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu said.

from Charter 97: Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu: "I'm frightened by repressive machine of destruction"
also Charter 97: Freedom for Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu!

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to a friend that they were "a parcel of forgeries, studiously and ably calculated to deceive the public." He judged them to be the work of "some person of genius and talents"--not one of the Irelands, certainly--who "ought to have been better employed." But he kept this verdict private; after all, a scholar or antiquary risked lifelong infamy if he denounced as fraudulent a poem or a play that was later proved to be Shakespeare's. So doubts about the papers' authenticity took the form of rumors.

from Smithsonian Magazine: The Greatest Shakespeare Hoax

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from his day job, complaining: "It is a crime against literature to let him waste eight hours per diem in that bank." It seems, however, that the contrary is true: it was very lucky for literature that TS Eliot did work in a bank.

Not only was the salary conducive to his great flowering as the poet of T he Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land , but the nature of his work proved a remarkable fit for the kind of poetry he began to write.

The Waste Land , a poem of collapse and disorder, where a straightforward narrative is dispensed with to mirror the fractured unity of the postwar world, found an echo in Eliot's day-to-day work as what we would probably call an analyst in Lloyds's foreign and colonial office.

from The Irish Times: The Poet And The City

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what else do you plan to do when you're no longer laureate?

KR: I plan to do a lot more bicycle riding. I got a beautiful new bike and am looking forward to riding it more. I also want to do more woolgathering--idle rumination, daydreaming--which is absolutely essential for poetry, and which I can do on the bicycle.

from Washington City Paper: The Exit Interview: Poet Laureate Kay Ryan

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the intensely synthetic nature of the lyric process. While the poem did indeed "pop out" as in our wildest dreams of spontaneous creation, this only followed upon hours of labor on a very different sort of poem: a recollection--a recollection of ancient ruins, no less--and one in "regular form." How un-Schuyler-like! Rereading "February" in light of this letter, the quintessential "what can be seen out the window" poem is really about the intrusion of memory on the present.

from The Nation: Scoured Light

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a poem by an American man, about an Italian girl, that was recently honored with one of the largest poetry prizes in the world, Ireland's prestigious Strokestown International Poetry Prize. The award was adjudicated by a panel of judges from Ireland, England, and the US, and was given at the Strokestown Poetry Festival, held in the Irish town of Roscommon.

Poet and Watertown resident Lawrence Kessenich traveled with his family to accept the award, which comes with a reward of €4,000.

from The Boston Globe: Hairdresser was Watertown poet's muse

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enjoy British Columbia, a province of natural extremes where towering mountains meet the ocean in dramatic fashion.

"He wrote about people and the surrounding scenery, about creation and nature, which never changes. He wrote those poems thousands of years ago, but when you look at the mountains today in say Howe Sound (the area around Vancouver); it's the same green mountains. It's the ability to express human feelings and how they are linked with nature that really reveals Li Bai's incredible literary skills."

from China.org.cn: Li Bai poems thrill Canada

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been motivated to greatness by the rousing passage from Rudyard Kipling's If inscribed above the players' entrance to Centre Court.

But players inspired by the words "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same" now have a new muse, after Matt Harvey's appointment as the Championships' first official poet.

Harvey will produce a poem a day throughout the fortnight as the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club follows Heathrow airport and Marks & Spencer in embracing the vogue for writers in residence.

from The Guardian: Quiet, please: Wimbledon appoints its first official poet

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second-hand Kodak camera, using nothing more than the instructions on the film packets. They are some of the few photos of the Beat generation in their early years: a pre-Naked Lunch William Burroughs staring sadly at the camera from behind a pile of books; writer Gregory Corso crouching by a window in his Parisian attic; "Neal Cassady," as Ginsberg writes in a caption, "with cigarette young and vigorous age 29 with salesman surveying North Beach used car lot, he needed new wheels."

from NPR: Poetry In Allen Ginsberg's Photography

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an international poetry contest organised as part of Liverpool's John Lennon tribute season.

The Beatles Story is organising the global search for first ever Liverpool Lennon Poet in celebration of the life of the master lyricist.

The final stages of the hunt will take place during the tribute season this October to December, the major two-month cultural programme marking 70 years since Lennon's birth and 30 years since his death.

from Liverpool Daily Post: International poetry competition inspired by ex-Beatle John Lennon is launched
also The Beatles Story: John Lennon Poetry Competition to be judged by Poet Laureate

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on the fact, and it is a fact, that in this country one will hear Dylan Thomas recited at an extraordinarily large number of funerals. We realize at key moments in our lives, including our leaving this life, that poetry is significant to us. And it strikes me, it has been very telling that 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion,' a poem by Dylan Thomas, is a poem that is more often than not the poem of choice when a member of the family dies. That or 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.'

from Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Conversation: Paul Muldoon on Dylan Thomas
also Jeffrey Brown: PBS: Newshour: Weekly Poem: 'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night'

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journals and are included in the anthologies Life in Body: Writings from the House of Mercy and Sierra Songs & Descants: Poetry and Prose of the Sierra. She is a poet, dancer and teacher who works with diverse communities to increase access to movement and writing. She grew up on her family's tobacco farm in rural Tennessee amidst tall poplars. Here's her prose poem "Smoke, Spit, Chew."

Smoke, Spit, Chew

from Marianne Combs: Minnesota Public Radio: State of the Arts: Minnesota Poetry: Minnesota Poetry: Laressa Dickey's "Smoke, Spit, Chew"

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Carol Ann says: At 14 lines this poem casually touches base with the sonnet form. In the poem, an older woman watches the play of a young adolescent girl--we are reminded of a colt (canter/leggy/toss of mane/gallop) as the teenager plays frisbee on the lawn, her whole life before her.

from Carol Ann Duffy: The Daily Mirror: Poetry Corner

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By Carole Coates

Carol Ann says: Carole Coates is a poet from Lancaster and this comes from her book Looking Good (Shoestring Press, 2009). It's an elegy for the old Labour Party, a lament for the loss of the familial warmth of grass-roots socialism.

from Carol Ann Duffy: The Daily Mirror: Poetry Corner

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an overview of the poet's working past, much less our collective literary past. The same is true of publishing; hence, the scarcity of Selected or Collected works. That an updated or revised Oxford or Penguin Book of Canadian Verse hasn't appeared in nearly 30 years says less about the economics of book publishing than it does about our obsession with the blink-and-you'll-miss-it present. Publicity replaces criticism while big cash prizes become Potemkin-Village substitutes for a healthily engaged culture. [--Fraser Sutherland]

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: In Other Words: Fraser Sutherland: The glory of art

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Daisy reports that she "always passed/Along the streets through rows of nods and smiles,/And coughs and words such as 'there she goes'," she is decrying her obviously well-earned reputation as a prostitute by trying to implicate other people of the town, a clear case of cutting off the feet of others to try to make oneself taller.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Edgar Lee Masters' Daisy Fraser

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we have been making efforts to establish friendship associations between the two communities and these have been having impact. One main problem is that Deng Xiaoping's Seeking Truth from Facts is not being implemented. Hu Yaobang had made efforts to understand the real situation. Recently, Wen Jiabao has talked about Hu Yaobang's work attitude of not relying merely on official report but understanding the situation through contact with the people. There are many drawbacks in China because there is no investigating into the reality of the issue in a transparent manner. If there is transparency, it will help in reducing corruption.

from Tenzin Gyatso: The Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama: English Translation (from the Tibetan) of Wang Lixiong's interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on May 21, 2010

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Hey, Beth, look at me! I'm trying to tell you congratulations!" Her name was not Beth. I do that sort of thing all the time--I know that your status as husband is more significant but it's the same principal at work. My point is that all people deviate from "normal" behavior--that's what makes us people. If we followed the same routine every day, we'd be pretty boring:

[by Matthea Harvey]

"Our Square of Lawn"

from Kristen Hoggatt: The Smart Set: Ask a Poet: The Odd Couple

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when "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang" and "The Bedwetter" are currently among the premier products of our publishing industry, is another reflection on the sinking fortunes of "the book" in order?

Those memoirs, sort of, by comedians Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman are without class or taste, largely harmless, quickly forgotten and guaranteed to draw a few laughs--if you're 12.

Harper and Grand Central (formerly Warner Books) published them, both respectable houses, but they need to pay the light bill and those books bring in quick cash.

from Bob Hoover: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Market a good book lately?

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by John O'Keefe

Amo, Amas, I love a lass

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Amo, Amas by John O'Keefe

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Blue Girls
by John Crowe Ransom

Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Blue Girls by John Crowe Ransom

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The Dime-Store Parakeet
by Gary Soto

The bird didn't speak

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Dime-Store Parakeet by Gary Soto

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My Heart
by Kim Addonizio

That Mississippi chicken shack.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: My Heart by Kim Addonizio

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The Man in the Yard
by Howard Nelson

My father told me once

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Man in the Yard by Howard Nelson

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The Secret of Life
by Ellen Goldsmith

I grabbed the streetcar from Fisherman's Wharf

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: The Secret of Life by Ellen Goldsmith

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Song of Solomon
by Anonymous

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Song of Solomon by Anonymous

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of anti-Semitism are brought together. Jews deliberately murder non-Jewish children; they "feed" lies to unwitting Gentiles, presumably through their control of the media; they mock their dupes as "dumb goys"; they are as bad as Nazis. Yet when the obvious anti-Semitism of this poem was pointed out, Paulin--a highly respected figure in the British literary world--responded with another indignant poem called "On Being Dealt the Anti-Semite Card," in which he protested his innocence while once again comparing Jews to Nazis ("the usual cynical Goebbels stuff").

from Adam Kirsch: Tablet: Albion's Shame

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take from life a single moment and hold it up for me to look at. There need not be anything sensational or unusual or peculiar about that moment, but somehow, by directing my attention to it, our attention to it, the poet bathes it in the light of the remarkable. Here is a poem like this by Carolyn Miller, who lives in San Francisco.

The World as It is

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 269

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to put pressure on Chinese authorities to release jailed AIDS activist and rights campaigner Hu Jia on medical grounds.

In a campaign on the social networking site Facebook titled "A Day Longer is a Day too Long," Hu's supporters called on people to mark World AIDS Vaccine Day by making phone calls to the authorities to support Hu's bid for medical parole.

"This grassroots campaign is calling for a day of action to remind the Chinese government that the world has not forgotten about Hu Jia," campaigners said in a statement on Facebook.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Online Campaign for AIDS Activist

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Uyghurs based in Urumqi said that popular Uyghur Web sites including Uighurbiz, Diyarim.com, Salkin, Shabnem, and Orkhum remain closed, with many of their editors and moderators still behind bars.

And in Urumqi, an official complaints hot line confirmed that censorship of online content would continue as before.

An employee who answered the phone at the Xinjiang Negative News Reporting Line said "negative" information is that which harms ethnic unity and national security.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: Xinjiang Online, Controls Remain

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also known as the earl of Rochester, deploys wit as a flashing blade of skepticism, slashing away not only at a variety of human behaviors and beliefs, not only at false authorities and hollow reverences, not only at language, but at knowledge--at thought itself:

"Upon Nothing"

from Robert Pinsky: Slate: Something From Nothing

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On Poetry and Songwriting:

Pinsky: "Pat Alger, who's written a lot of country hits, we did a few shows together and we were interviewed by a disk jockey in Texas. He said, 'What's the difference between writing a song and writing a poem?' Before I could answer, Pat, who's a poetry buff, and a [Robert] Frost collector, said, "A little poetry can really help a song. Too much poetry can sink a song."

Springsteen: "I've practiced both disciplines."

from Robert Pinsky: New Jersey Monthly: Springsteen and the Poet Laureate

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the world in its grain of sand: occasionally, there's an inner mass that defies all logic. It's as if a Life had been written on the back of a postcard. This week's poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning has that quality. It's the penultimate sonnet in a sequence of 44, Sonnets from the Portuguese, the one that begins, "How do I love thee?"

The sonnets are not, of course, real translations.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: Sonnets from the Portuguese, No 43, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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precisely the way it says it, so life means what it is just the way it happens.

This was, for me, a kind of satori. Not that I experienced any blazing sense of transcendence. No, it was quite matter-of-fact, actually. As another Zen master explained: Before you enter upon the way of Zen, a tree is just a tree. But once you enter upon the way, a tree is no longer a tree. Should you arrive at satori, a tree is just a tree.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: You can't think your way to truth

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by Eric Chaet

I wake, cold.

from CounterPunch: Poets' Basement: Three by Eric Chaet

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we feature the work of Dion Farquhar, a poet and fiction writer with recent poems in "moria," "The Dirty Napkin," "of(f) course," "BlazeVOX," and "Hamilton Stone Review" and "Shifter." Her chapbook, "Cleaving," won first prize at Poets Corner Press in 2007, and her first poetry book, "Feet First," will be published by Evening Street Press in July 2010.

Rozerem

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner

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by Paul Batchelor
After Baudelaire

from The Guardian: The Saturday poem: Beauty by Paul Batchelor

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and likeable in its intention of getting the reader to be interested in this group of people. So who were they? Members of something? Of what persuasion? Or orientation? Why are they keeping this apparent anniversary? Those "shopping bags strewn on cobbled ground" represent a true poetry of observation. More poets ought to produce (good, enjoyable) poems that leave us asking questions.

from The Guardian: Poetry workshop: a rectangular frame

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By Patrick Pritchard

The true meaning

from Lawrence Journal-World: Poet's Showcase: 'What is Important?'

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by Bob Hicok

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Bob Hicok: A Night Out

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Roanoke Pastorale
by David Huddle

from The New Yorker: Poetry: David Huddle: Roanoke Pastorale

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I am a creek

from The Oregonian: Poetry: 'I Am' by Anna Bohorquez

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Some mornings I forget, sitting inside myself.

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

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by his surname, and Ms. [Madeline] Gins explored their philosophy, which they called Reversible Destiny, in poems, books, paintings and, when they found clients, buildings.

Their most recent work, a house on Long Island, had a steeply sloped floor that threatened to send visitors hurtling into its kitchen.

from The New York Times: Arakawa, Whose Art Tried to Halt Aging, Dies at 73

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retired bookkeeper, artist and poet, having published several books. She was a member of Lake Palestine United Methodist Church, the Southern Angels, and was church historian. She was a member of numerous Poetry Societies across the United States.

from Marietta Times: Dorothy Miller Birdwell

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and M.A. from Texas Tech. A woman of many interests, she wrote poetry and short stories, worked in ceramics, painted, was an avid photographer, doll collector, gardener and loved to travel. With her musical talent she played the piano and was a member of the Sweet Adeline Chorus.

from The Karnes Countywide: Elaine McCoy Dunn

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a freelance writing career with the publication in Esquire magazine of a story called "The Horse on the Escalator," a tragically comic tale about about a man who collected jokes about horses. Several years later, he found steady work in New York at Humpty Dumpty's Magazine. Each month for eight years, he wrote a short story and a poem offering moral advice, some of which were later collected in "Never Make Fun of a Turtle, My Son) (1969).

from The Washington Post: Martin Gardner, 95, a journalist, provided in-depth analysis of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat
also The Guardian: Martin Gardner: 1914-2010

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Eric [Frederick Haag] was part of the vocal cast of the Topeka Symphony earlier this month and planned on earning a master's degree in music theory and composition.

In his resume, Eric described himself as a "High Baritone" with brown, curly hair, brown eyes, standing 5 feet 10 inches tall. He recently penned a poem which ended, "How can you know you're in the light unless you've been through the day."

from Leavenworth Times: Eric Frederick Haag

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and was given a medal for debate, drama and extemporaneous speaking. At the University of Utah he won a varsity debate award and was elected to the national honorary debating fraternity. He was a sought after speaker in the Idaho Falls area for many years, and influenced many with his wit, wisdom, poetry, and philosophy of life.

from The Spectrum: Rheim M. Jones

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Yakob Nikoladze and Nodar Dumbadze.

Earlier, the body of Mukhran Machavariani had been lying in state in the Trinity Cathedral since this morning.

Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Illia ll prayed for the soul of the poet at the Cathedral.

'There are people who bear only their crosses, but there are some people, who bear the cross of the nation as well. Mukhran Machavariani was a person bearing the cross of the nation, the pain of the nation', Illia ll stated.

from InterPressNews: Mukhran Machavariani Buried in Mtatsminda Pantheon

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the most prominent Irish language academics of his generation.

Born in 1936, Prof Ó Buachalla graduated with a degree in Celtic Studies from University College Cork and went on to teach at Queens University Belfast and University College Dublin where he was Professor of Modern Irish Language and Literature.

He also held visiting professorships at Notre Dame University, New York University and Boston College.

from RTÉ News: Death of Gaelic scholar Breandán Ó Buachalla

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said his mother's legacy to the family goes well beyond the wonderful watercolour landscapes she painted in later years and her treasured writings, including poems, a family history called Life's Like That chronicling the Miramichi native's life and her three unpublished novels.

from Telegraph-Journal: She was Mom to everybody

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and you'll miss, among other things, [Peter] Porter's open identification with "the English blindness". When you notice this line, on re-reading, you feel compelled to ask, "Isn't he meant to be Australian?" And then--"are we, the English, really that blind?" Like other poems in this collection, "An Exequy" attests to Porter's deeper affinities with the verse traditions of the English language, the roads not taken as well as the major arterial routes.

from The Oxonian Review: Peter Porter: 1929-2010
also The Guardian: The Rest on the Flight: Selected Poems by Peter Porter

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Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy Award besides many other literary honours.

from Zee News: Noted Urdu poet Umar Qureshi dies

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with friends, listening to music, singing, playing guitar, bowling, fishing, drawing, writing poems and playing cards.

from The Daily Freeman-Journal: Devin Resh, 19, Webster City

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with the Boy Scouts, he became involved with and eventually became president of the Valley United Way. He was a lifelong supporter of the Boston Museum of Natural History (now the Museum of Science). When taking a break from the responsibilities of his practice, he enjoyed jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, cryptograms, Scrabble, opera, photography and gardening. Puns and other wordplay brought him much delight--he wrote light-hearted poetry to accompany gifts to those he loved; he was a connoisseur of limericks.

from Times Leader: Elliott Stirling Robinson Jr., M.D.

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and went into his own gardening business.

As a pastime, Kiichi and Irene [Yoshiko Shiga] enjoyed the art of classical poetry reciting, and Kiichi quickly became the master instructor of their organization, the Kinyu-Kai, Delta Shigin Branch.

from The Record: Kiichi Kay Shiga

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and was a musician playing and writing music was his greatest passion. He also wrote poetry.

from The Llano News: Tad Taylor

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at the age of 14 and won local and international poetry awards. He wrote about 150 poems.

One of them, Ode To An Orange, was included in the national matric examination last year.

The poem puts emphasis on the beauty of Africa. It was also published in Botsotso, a contemporary South African culture magazine, in 2004.

from The Weekend Post: Death of well-known Bay poet Andre van Vuuren

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so lively, Vetturi [Sundarama Murthy Sastry] made every word count. 'Abba Nee Theeyani Dabba' from 'Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari' starring Chiranjeevi and Sri Devi, a flirty duet between the lead pair, received a lot of appreciation as the song dealt the love for two in a sensible yet sensuous way.

Not just the lyricist he was, Veturi was also a poet who wrote beautiful poems on various topics especially Telugu.

from indiaglitz: Veturi--an epitome of literature

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